da bet esporte： Brian Lara, temporarily at least, silenced his vocal band of critics onTuesday with a superb century on his return to Test cricket in the firstTest against Sri Lanka at Galle
Charlie Austin13-Nov-2001Brian Lara, temporarily at least, silenced his vocal band of critics onTuesday with a superb century on his return to Test cricket in the firstTest against Sri Lanka at Galle.Lara, who pulled out of the West Indies tour to Zimbabwe and Kenya in Julyand August with a long-standing hamstring injury, scored an unbeaten 117 asthe West Indies piled up 316-3 on the opening day.There are always going to be critics," he admitted. "But I have got to goout there and do my job. The coach asked me what I want to do this seriesand I told him that I want to make plenty of runs and spend a lot of time inthe middle."Critics voiced concern over his inclusion in the squad for Sri Lanka when itwas revealed that he was still suffering from his hamstring injury.Moreover, they argued that the 32-year-old Trinidadian batting genius hadlong lost his hunger for runs.He, though, claims that the emergence of new West Indian batting talent hasprovided the stimulus to develop his game."The competition within the side is greater than what it has been in yearsgone by," he said. "The young players like Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan andDaren Ganga are special and batting with them brings out the best in me.""I have been working on a few things in the last six weeks since I returned.I am looking to play bit straighter and show the full face of the bat. It isnice to go out there, work on something, and get the results"Ominously for Sri Lanka, Lara, the record holder for the highest scores inboth Test and first class cricket, maintains that he is not yet finished inthis match: "I’m very happy now, but I am going to come back tomorrow andlook for something really big.""It’s a very good position but it is very important that the second inningsis not a very important innings. We need to get 500-600 runs and put SriLanka under pressure. We cannot allow them to get back into the game."Hopefully, the wicket will crumble, as we are now playing three spinners.The longer we stay out there the better."Lara came to the wicket at the fall of Daren Ganga, with the West Indianinnings evenly poised on 95-2, but quickly took the came away from Sri Lankawith a 150 ball century in a 145 run stand with Ramnaresh Sarwan and anunbeaten 76 run fourth wicket partnership.He was dropped on 31 and 93, but was only consistently troubled byoff-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, who rolled out 40 overs of testing spin."Muralitharan is a very good bowler and it’s a great competition betweenus," he said. "I appreciate his ability to bowl off-spin. He is somethingspecial in world cricket.Lara looked to play him positively, right from the start when he got off themark with a fine sweep for four."I think you have to keep him thinking," he said. "He is going to keep youunder pressure if you just look to stay there, so I think you need to keepscoring."