West Indies captain Brian Lara, who had his world Test-record score of 375 erased by Matthew Hayden of Australia yesterday said that this has cleared the road for him to “show the people that West Indies cricket means everything” to him.

At a news conference he arranged at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica where he is participating in the Red Stripe Bowl, Lara congratulated Hayden for scoring 380 against Zimbabwe but said he was not saddened by seeing his record surpassed because, “I think that people are going to get a clear picture of who Brian Lara really is now.

“I think that my career has gone beyond individual goals and aspirations, it is now a very fully-oriented team situation where I’ve got to go out there and lead the West Indies team to greater things in the future,” Lara said.

“I think it’s important to understand that records are made to be broken and at some point in time I knew that 375 was going to be passed and I had earmarked a couple of players one was not Matthew Hayden, I had Sachin (Tendulkar) and Chris Gayle,” Lara said.

Lara, who still holds the record for the highest individual first class score (501*) confessed that he would have preferred if a young West Indian batsman had surpassed his former world record.

“I would just love to see some of the young guys (West Indies players) come through, even go ahead and go past Matthew Hayden but I know as a team we want to get back on top of that ladder,” Lara told the packed news conference room.

“My aim as team captain is presently to get our team to move forward as a team, not as individuals and get West Indies team where it belongs and where the public expects us to be at this present time,” he said.

“In my present situation in West Indies cricket I think numbers and individual records really don’t stand upfront in my thinking, more the letters. I’d prefer to say that the letters ‘W’, ‘I’, West Indies cricket, these sort of things are uppermost in my mind,” Lara told reporters when asked if having lost the record means he would have renewed energy to reclaim it.

“To get our team back to the top I think is something that is going to be remembered for if Brian Lara in this present West Indies team could bring us some sort of semblance to our past success in the late 70s and 80s and this is my main focus and to really think about scoring records again is not uppermost in my mind,” a composed Lara said of his views towards having lost the record.

“It’s great for Matthew, he’s 31 years old and I know he’s worked pretty hard. He was in the Australian team in his early twenties, out and then back again with a bang,” the 33-year-old master left hander said in congratulating Hayden for his record achievement.

“I think it’s a great testament to the effort he has put in over the years,” Lara added.

Lara does not believe that Hayden’s record is diminished by the fact that it was scored against the lowly ranked Zimbabwe.

“It doesn’t matter who you’re playing against, to score 380 runs in a test match is a major achievement,” Lara said.