It's important to win our last game before World Cup: Lara
by Cricket Archive Staff Reporter
DateLine: 1st February 2007
Describing his team as highly "unpredictable", skipper Brian Lara said
the West Indies had to learn to handle crunch situations to achieve
consistency and make an impact in the World Cup.
Lara said the fourth one-dayer tomorrow was the last game for his team
before the World Cup and it was important to win the match to maintain
a psychological edge over the Indians.
"It's very pertinent moving forward. It's our last international game
before the opening match in the World Cup against Pakistan. It's
important for us to win the game tomorrow and keep the psychological
edge over India," Lara said on the eve of the final one-dayer against
India at Baroda.
"We as players wanted this series very badly as we were playing against
one of the top international sides in their backyard. We wish we had
some more cricket to play before the World Cup starts. I expect them to
go out tomorrow and win the game to square the series 2-2. We want to
go home with that score though ideally I would have liked to have come
here with a 2-1 scoreline in our favour," he added.
Lara, who is set to play his fifth World Cup soon, conceded that his
side was an unpredictable one and needed to get its act together before
the World Cup.
"We are an unpredictable side. We win either by a big margin or lose by
a big margin. What I am pleased about the Chennai game (which West
Indies won by three wickets to reduce India's lead to 1-2) is that we
fought back well after India were in total charge in the first 30
overs", he said.
