Anytime now, the selectors will be announcing the West Indies team for the World Cup in South Africa, and apart from deciding who the bowlers will be, Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge and Joey Carew also have to decide what to do with Brian Lara.

The question is this: should Lara be in or should he be out?

In the interest of West Indies cricket, he should be out.

As a batsman, Lara, certainly when he is fit and ready, is one of the best if not the best batsman in the world, and there is no question that in the West Indies' bid to win the World Cup he would be an asset to the team.

Cricket, however, is a team game, no one is bigger than the game, and as brilliant as he has been, as great as he is, Lara is not indispensable.

On top of that, he has shown little respect, not only for the game but for its administrators and for the people of the West Indies.

No one with any respect for the game, especially a professional, would treat it as he has done as far as preparing himself is concerned; remembering his history and, according to the president of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board of Control, Lara's response, his arrogance, to the query re his participation in the country's recent preparation for the regional tournament, no one with respect for its administrators would treat them as he has done; and in a region where cricket means so much to the people, no one with respect for the people would treat West Indies cricket as he has done.

There are other reasons, however, why Lara should not be selected, and although it was due to injury, they include the fact that he has been out of action for some time, that he has not been training and practising, and that no one knows if he is fit enough, physically and mentally, to represent the West Indies or if he is in good form.

There are also other reasons why Lara should not be selected, and one is that, according to the president of the TTCBC, he refused to attend Trinidad and Tobago's preparation and in doing so made no effort to prepare himself.

Another is this. Although, like Mervyn Dillon who participated in the trial matches, he would not have been selected for the Trinidad and Tobago squad because he would not have been available for most of the regional tournament if selected to the World Cup squad, by not attending the preparation Lara made it clear, not only that he did not need to train and practise, but also that he was not interested in representing Trinidad and Tobago.

Barring injury, illness or something else that is beyond the control of a player, selection to the West Indies team should follow selection to territorial teams, and if that is so, by not making himself available for Trinidad and Tobago, Lara has disqualified himself from the West Indies team for the World Cup.