Windies Ready For Lara Farewell

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Lara - set for Windies farewell.

By Myles Hodgson, PA Sport Cricket Correspondent, Barbados

West Indies are braced to say farewell to one of their last great modern-day players as Brian Lara prepares to play his final international match against England on Saturday.

The 37-year-old left-hander has announced that their final match of the Super Eight stage at the Kensington Oval will be his last, bringing to an end a glittering career which has included 11,953 Test runs and 10,387 in the one-day international arena.

During that career he has claimed the individual Test world record twice, hit 34 Test hundreds at average of 52 and 19 one-day international centuries.

He retires as arguably the best player of his generation alongside India's Sachin Tendulkar and many opponents, England included, will be glad to see the end of his trademark high back-lift which usually resulted in the ball flying through the outfield to record yet another boundary.

"He's a genius and there's not many in the world that can put themselves in that genius bracket," admitted England captain Michael Vaughan.

"As a captain you sometimes have plans and know where to bowl at players, but he's one of those batsmen who can make a captain look very silly because he's that good.

"He can manipulate the fields you've set, manipulate the bowling changes you make and he'll be missed in the game but certainly not from us because he's scored far too many runs against England."

Sometimes regarded as difficult and temperamental, his genius was enough to persuade Australian coach Bennett King to swap Queensland to take over the West Indies three years ago just so he could work with the man known as King Lara throughout the Caribbean.

"For the paying public who actually keep our game alive and for the television audiences he's a massive loss," said King.

"He's a once-in-a-lifetime type of players with the style he uses and I've certainly been impressed.

"It's one of the things that motivated me to take on the challenge of the West Indies - that I could work with someone who has got something that other people haven't.

"He's a genius. He's a player who can hit balls in virtually any area of the field off the same sort of delivery - he could do things that other people couldn't."

He added: "I think we're losing a wonderful cricketer, a cricketer who brought people through the turnstiles. He was certainly one of a kind.

"His innings over the years haven't necessarily won us games, but have certainly kept us in them and probably saved us from embarrassment.

"I can think of a number of innings when I've sat there in total wonder. We made 300 in Trinidad against South Africa and he made 196, I saw him score 156 against Pakistan in a one-day game and you wouldn't want to be anywhere else - I saw him score his world record runs and people were clambering trying to get in."

England (from): MP Vaughan (Yorkshire, capt), AJ Strauss (Middlesex), IR Bell (Warwickshire), KP Pietersen (Hampshire), PD Collingwood (Durham), A Flintoff (Lancashire), RS Bopara (Essex), PA Nixon (Leicestershire, wkt), SI Mahmood (Lancashire) JM Anderson (Lancashire), MS Panesar (Northamptonshire), SC Broad (Leicestershire), EC Joyce (Middlesex), LE Plunkett (Durham).

West Indies (from): CH Gayle, DS Smith, S Chanderpaul, MN Samuels, RR Sarwan, BC Lara (capt), DJ Bravo, D Ramdin (wkt), DB Powell, CD Collymore, JE Taylor, KA Pollard, IDR Bradshaw.

Umpires: RE Koertzen (SA) & SJA Taufel (Aus).

Third Umpire: BF Bowden (NZ).

Match referee: RS Madugalle (SL).