Lara holds the key to Windies fortunes
Brian Lara will be the man holding centre stage again as the West Indies attempt to reverse their wretched cycle of adversity when the third Test against all-conquering Australia starts in Adelaide on Friday.
Trailing 0-2 after three-day thrashings in Brisbane and Perth, the Windies have plenty of motivation not to plunge to a third successive defeat.
Such a result would plant them firmly on the path to the biggest battering either side has received in 70 years of Caribbean-Antipodean competition.
Australia beat Clive Lloyd's 1975-76 side here 5-1, but neither team has walloped the other by five clear games.
If there is one ground in Australia where Lara, the enigmatic Trinidadian can stamp his class, it has to be Adelaide Oval, home of one of the world's most batsman-friendly pitches.
Lara is a player with the undoubted talent to halt a Caribbean cavalcade of catastrophe -- 15 defeats in their past 17 away Tests.
West Indies' supporters will be massively buoyed by his so typically Lara-like romp of 231 against the Australia A side in Hobart earlier in the week.
But there he faced an attack with much less firepower than the unit he will confront in the Test.
Notable among the absentees were paceman Glenn McGrath, who has trapped him in three of his four Test failures on tour so far, speedster Jason Gillespie and leg-spinner Stuart MacGill, who bamboozled him with a superb delivery in the second Test in Perth.
The absence through injury of Brett Lee, rated the world's fastest bowler, will offer some respite, though the inclusion of versatile off-spinner cum medium-pacer Colin Miller will present a new challenge on a pitch expected to smile on slow bowlers on the last two days.
For Lara and capable middle-order batsmen such as Ridley Jacobs to have an opportunity to play their shots against an attack robbed of its early razor-edge, the top order must find some form.
Extraordinarily, the West Indies have yet to top 200 in any innings after the first two Tests; even worse, they have seen the first five wickets fall each time for 60, 66, 22 and 96.
The players who have to lift their form dramatically are opening pair Sherwin Campbell (10, 0, 3 and 4) and Daren Ganga (20, 8, 0 and 20), as well as skipper Jimmy Adams (16 not out, 16, 0 and 40 not out).
It is doubtful if the biggest failure of all, Ramnaresh Sarwan (0, 0, 2 and 1 ) will have a further Test chance on this tour, unless injury intervenes to force his selection.
It appears highly likely he will be omitted to make room for newly arrived Marlon Samuels, flown in late last week to replace the injured Shivnarine Chanderpaul.
The talented Jamaican, still jetlagged, made only nine with the bat, but captured three wickets with his off-spinners against Australia A in the match which ended Tuesday.
Samuels's, seven weeks short of his 20th birthday, is a right-handed batsman and brother of Robert Samuels, the left-handed opener who toured Australia four years ago.
With Steve Waugh sidelined with a buttock injury, Adam Gilchrist takes over the reins of an Australian side looking to improve the world-record sequence of 12 successive Test wins they established at the WACA Ground in Perth 10 days ago.
Teams from:
Australia: Adam Gilchrist (capt), Ricky Ponting (vice-capt), Andy Bichel, Jason Gillespie, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Stuart MacGill, Glenn McGrath, Damien Martyn, Colin Miller, Michael Slater, Mark Waugh (12th man to be named).
West Indies: Jimmy Adams (capt), Sherwin Campbell (vice-capt), Marlon Black, Mervyn Dillon, Daren Ganga, Wavell Hinds, Ridley Jacobs, Brian Lara, Nixon McLean, Mahendra Nagamootoo, Marlon Samuels, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Courtney Walsh (to be finalised from 13-man squad)
Mail Cricket Editor
