WICB to 'axe' Lara -- Telegraph
By Rickey Singh
Guyana Chronicle
April 15, 2007
BRIDGETOWN -- The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) "is set to axe Brian Lara as captain of the West Indies team", and ahead of the forthcoming tour of England this summer.
That is according to a report being published in today's `Sunday Telegraph’, as updated at 10.30 o'clock last night on its internet edition.
Written by Scyld Berry, the report, which is contrary to the latest defence of Lara as captain by the WICB's President, Ken Gordon, states:
"Hanging by a thread in the next few days is the career of Brian Lara, the West Indies captain and world record-holding batsman. Unless the West Indies selectors have a change of heart, Lara will not be touring England this summer or anywhere else again..."
Lara, who last week publicly apologised for the very poor performances by the West Indies team in the current World Cup tournament, has already announced that beyond the coming two remaining matches, he has no intention of playing any longer in One Day Internationals (ODIs)
The first of the two remaining matches for the West Indies in the Super Eight segment of the tournament takes place at Kensington Oval on Thursday against Bangladesh.
According to the Sunday Telegraph report, Lara was "never selected to be West Indies captain for this World Cup".
It claims that "selectors who know their stuff -- Gordon Greenidge, Clyde Butts and Andy Roberts -- chose Ramnaresh Sarwan, the Guyanese former prodigy, who has enough about him to begin the long process of regeneration...”
"It was only when the President of the WICB (Ken Gordon) stepped in", said the Telegraph's Berry -- "and like most cricket administrators, Gordon knows more about business than cricket -- that Lara was appointed".
In contrast to Gordon's own spirited defence of Lara and the team in general that while disappointments abound, now is not the time to criticise but an exercise in "some care, judgement and timing", the Telegraph's writer stated without sourcing, that the 37-year-old Lara "will never again be entrusted with the captaincy..."