West Indies in a spin as Lara stays home

TONY COZIER

Brian Lara, the record-breaking left-handed batsman who enjoys God-like status in the Caribbean threw West Indies cricket into a state of shock yesterday by suddenly pulling out of the team for the imminent tour of Australia.

Lara stuck by his decision, first conveyed on Friday to the West Indies Cricket Board of Control (WICBC), even after appeals over the weekend by the WICBC president, Peter Short.

It came a day after the team's departure, four days after Lara was fined by the WICBC for going absent without leave during the summer tour of England and just a week after he scrapped a three-year contract with Warwickshire by mutual agreement. The WICBC did not reveal Lara's reasons but said it did not consider they merited his release from the team.

It added that Short had tried to persuade him that the tour "was in his own best interest and that of West Indies cricket".

Lara and three other members of the England tour team - Curtly Ambrose, Kenneth Benjamin and Carl Hooper - appeared before the WICBC disciplinary committee on Wednesday and were all docked 10 per cent of their tour fee for various indiscretions.

Lara later told a newspaper in his native Trinidad he was "finding it very difficult to come to terms with the fact that the management of the tour looked at me as one of the guys who tried to create disharmony in the camp".

Short said yesterday Lara had told him he felt his reputation was diminished by the publicity surrounding the disciplinary hearing, being labelled by newspapers as one of "the gang of four" and a rebel.

Lara's place will be taken by Roland Holder, a right-handed batsman from Barbados, for the Australian tour that features one-day internationals in the World Series Tournament and contains no Tests.

Doubt over future, page 28