WI coach counting on Lara

The West Indies arrived in Brisbane yesterday to start preparations for the opening match of the three-Test series at the Gabba Ground beginning on November 3. Former Queensland state and Australian cricket academy coach King will rely heavily on a form reversal from Lara, who along with skipper Shivnarine Chanderpaul is the only West Indies player over 30.

The 36-year-old Lara scored just five and 36 in the World XI’s 210-run Super Test loss to Australia at Sydney and also failed in the three limited-overs internationals. "Hopefully he’s saving them all up for us against Australia," King said.

"I think he’s copped some pretty harsh criticism in the press and people forget what he’s done. He’s one innings away from being the class player again that we all know that he is."

Lara, who will join his team mates in Brisbane today, has 10,859 runs from 118 Tests and is just 315 short of former Australian captain Allan Border’s record of 11,174.

Chanderpaul said a contractual row between the West Indies Players Association and the West Indies Cricket Board had been resolved and the team was looking forward to the series.

"I think so far everything is sorted out and we’re down here to play cricket," he said.

The dispute meant King has already coached a combined 39 players in the West Indies team since he took over as coach 10 months ago. After arriving at the team hotel in Brisbane, the players had a light session with Strength and Conditioning Coordinator, Bryce Cavanagh in the hotel pool.

"I am happy that we were able to arrive in Australia a bit early, ahead of our first warm-up game," Chanderpaul said upon arrival.

"It is a long trip to get here, with about 30 hours of flying so it takes a bit of time to get over the jet lag," Chanderpaul added.

"The time here will allow us to prepare for what will be a tough series against Australia who are a top class team," Chanderpaul said as he briefed the local media at the Brisbane International Airport.

"I’m looking for courage, commitment, enthusiasm and consistency. If we can do all these we will be able to do pretty well," said coach King, joining Chanderpaul in the airport media briefing.

Devon Smith was to join the squad yesterday evening, having left Grenada on Tuesday after missing his flight on Monday.

Christopher Gayle and Wavell Hinds will arrive in Australia tomorrow after receiving permission to remain in Jamaica.

Training commences today at the Allan Border Oval.

Full Squad: Shivnarine Chanderpaul (captain) Ramnaresh Sarwan (vice captain) Christopher Gayle, Devon Smith, Wavell Hinds, Brian Lara, Marlon Samuels, Dwayne Smith, Dwayne Bravo, Denesh Ramdin, Tino Best, Daren Powell, Fidel Edwards, Jermaine Lawson and Corey Collymore.

Team Operations Unit— Anthony Howard, Team Manager; Bennett King, Head Coach; David Moore, Assistant Coach/Analyst; Stephen Partridge, Physiotherapist; Bryce Cavanagh, Strength and Conditioning Coordinator; David Scott, Performance Enhancer; Imran Khan, Media Officer.

David Scott is with the squad until after the First Test match.