Lara eager to face Guyana

Speaking in a news broadcast on a local television station earlier this week, the triple world record-holder stated that, following TT’s 282-hammering of Jamaica a fortnight ago, he is keen to join the fray against the Guyanese, whose team includes West Indies captain Shivnarine Chanderpaul and his deputy Ramnaresh Sarwan.

"It’s not going to be an easy game, it would be very competitive," said Lara, during a practice session at the National Cricket Centre, Balmain, Couva.

"And I know both teams have quite a lot of spinners and both teams have very good players of spinners."

"At the end of the day, may the better team win," he said.

Lara, Test cricket’s leading run-scorer and the holder of the highest score in a Test innings (400 not out) and First-Class cricket (501 not out), admitted that a wrist injury he sustained during last November’s series in Australia is still troubling him.

"I’m not 100 percent," he confessed. "Most sportsmen don’t play a game 100 percent fit and I’m happy to be back and it’s not an injury which means that much but hopefully it would heal."

Lara declined a West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) offer to attend a leadership seminar earlier this week at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill Campus in Barbados.

"I’m 36 and, unless it’s a leadership course for some sort of career I’m having after cricket, it wasn’t necessary," Lara noted.

"But I think I know what the game is all about.

"I’ve been playing international cricket for the last 15 years or so," Lara continued. "I’ve had two opportunities to captain the West Indies.

I know what it takes to get teams going (but) unfortunately it didn’t work out.

"It’s a necessary process for the young players and hopefully they’ll gain a lot," he said.