West Indies needs to get back that love for Test cricket, says Brian Lara
Legendary Test cricketer Brian Lara hopes West Indies can rediscover their love for Test cricket and put weight on the Test cap like Australia, England, and India. Lara further tipped the Indian duo of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma to break his record individual score of 400 in the future.
Once they were the dominant force across formats in the world of cricket, but now West Indian teams are known for their exploits in the shortest version i.e. T20. Lara hopes that Cricket West Indies (CWI) will take the onus upon themselves to ensure a resurgence for the traditional format from the grassroots level.
“A youngster may want to do different things, but if you have a structure in place, letting them know the guidelines, I believe you can have the effect of what the Baggy Greens has in Australia and what the English and Indian cricket teams have. They have the most exciting T20 league. But yet they are very excited about Test cricket. They're very excited about all versions of the game. And we need to get that love back for Test cricket,” Lara said, reported Sportstar.
In an age where T20 leagues — and the large paychecks on offer — are luring away the youngsters, Lara wants the board president Jimmy Adams and Co. to have a fresh plan for Test cricket. The Windies side are as low as No.7 in ICC's Test ranking, with inconsistency costing games for them in the past year. However, under Simmons, they got off to the best starts with a victory over Afghanistan in the only Test in India.
“Cricket is a unique unifying force [in the Caribbean], but it still has its problems to keep us unified in terms of getting the infrastructure needed. I’m hoping that the present West Indies president, Jimmy Adams, Director of Cricket, [and other] cricket officials for the West Indies, going to come up with a plan to ensure that the West Indies remain strong or get strong again in Test cricket,” he said.
Meanwhile, David Warner looked set to break Lara’s record 400 in a recent Test against Pakistan at Adelaide, but the Aussies declared with him unbeaten on 345. Lara feels that attacking batsmen such as Kohli and Rohit have the ability to break the record one day.
"I think with a guy like Virat Kohli (could), with the way he scores, Rohit Sharma, also a player on his day or a day and a half could definitely break the record. The game has to keep improving; the game has to always remain exciting. And sitting down as a 50-year-old with two records is not that exciting. I could tell you that,” Lara added.
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