E-Paper
Lara urges Windies to build on form
The West Indies captain has urged his side, who won a place in the semi-final of the Champions Trophy, to carry their form into the Test arena.
West Indies captain Brian Lara has urged his side to carry their recent good one-day form into the Test arena.
West Indies won a place in Wednesday's semi-final of the ICC Champions Trophy against Pakistan when they comfortably beat South Africa by five wickets at the Oval on Sunday.
But after a 4-0 drubbing in the Test series in England this summer and a 3-0 reverse in the Caribbean, again against the English, Lara has told his team they need to translate their good run of results into the five-day arena.
"The one-day team are performing a bit better than the Test team and hopefully in the future we can take that into the five-day game," said the skipper.
"We have some fresh faces in the one-day squad, guys who are thinking differently and we've got a long break after this tournament but hopefully we'll get to the final before that."
West Indies judged their run-chase on Sunday perfectly with Lara (49), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (51 not out) and Ramnaresh Sarwan (75) playing well-judged knocks before Ricardo Powell's 10-ball 16 turned the match.
But Lara criticised the pitch that was used for the match saying it was too slow to encourage good cricket.
The strip had been used for Thursday's game between Australia and New Zealand and the West Indies captain is hoping for better when his side plays against the Pakistanis in Southampton on Wednesday.
