Lara wants improvement in bowling, fielding

JOHANNESBURG: West Indies, fresh from their fighting effort to draw the Third Test against South Africa on Tuesday, arrived in Johannesburg yesterday to begin preparation for the final Test match. They start a four-day fixture against Easterns tomorrow and the West Indies have given themselves the task of improving the bowling and fielding to improve their chances in the last Test, starting on January 16. The West Indies got a sensational unbeaten hundred from 20-year-old debutant Dwayne Smith, to secure a draw in the Cape Town Test on Tuesday and snap a seven-match losing streak in Tests in South Africa.

But the South Africans, who won the First and Second Test matches, now have a winning 2-0 lead in the four-match series with that result and the West Indies will be playing for pride when the final match starts at Centurion Park next week Friday. Brian Lara, the West Indies captain, says their aim now is to lift their bowling and fielding performances to better support the batting. “If we work on our bowling and fielding, we will be even more competitive,” Lara said. “We are 2-0 down (going) in the last Test match and we must try to produce something better than this performance,” he said during Tuesday’s press conference after the Third Test. “To score 400 plus runs in the first innings and 300 plus for five in the second innings is a team that is batting well. Under any situation away from home that is excellent batting, I just think we need to get it together as a fielding and bowling team,” he added.

Lara said in the build up to the final Test, they will focus on improving the output in fielding and bowling. “We have to try to get the bowlers to realise that when they are at practice, they practise in a match situation in the field, whenever we are fielding whether in practice or in a practice match we have to get that intensity as if we are in a Test match.” Commenting on the numerous dropped catches that plagued the side in the Durban and Cape Town Tests, Lara said they are prepared to pay closer attention to fielding in practice. “We need to start doing match simulation (fielding) practice, try to get our guys under pressure in the field in practice so that when the situation happens in a match then we can try to repeat that. “It’s a similar thing in batting; you try to create a match situation as much as possible, try to get guys going out in the nets and not going out; we’ve got to do the same thing in practice when we are fielding, try to make sure to take every catch, be competitive in practice so it can pay off in the match,” said Lara, who — during the Third Test — became the quickest player to reach 9,000 runs in Test cricket.