Windies bowlers surprise Lara

LONDON: West Indies cricket captain Brian Lara was surprised by how well his bowlers performed for him on Sunday as West Indies beat England by seven wickets in the One-Day International at Trent Bridge. The Windies captain said: “We were expecting England to get 200 and a little more on a track such as this but our guys bowled really well. “I enjoyed the way our batters fought it out in the first 20 overs and it augurs well for the future. “We need to bottle what we achieved today and improve on it too.” Lara expects England to do more with the bat when the teams next meet in the NatWest Series under floodlights next Thursday. He said: “England will bat better at Headingley but if the guys can keep putting the balls in the right areas it will be great.”

Trinidad and Tobago allrounder Dwayne Bravo was one of the bowlers responsible for bowling England out for just 147, with “Man-of-the-Match” figures of three wickets for 23 runs. Lara said: “He’s a thinking cricketer. He’s a good all-rounder who has played a lot of cricket in Trinidad. He is still very young but we are looking for someone who can develop into a good all-rounder for us.” England captain Michael Vaughan said: “147 was never really a good enough total. I thought we bowled well but we dropped catches. We just did not play well enough.” But he insisted his team could bounce back, just as they had done in last year’s tournament when they lost their opener against Zimbabwe only to beat South Africa in the final. “We are going to have to do exactly the same again and show all our fighting  attributes,” he said.