West Indies may have been completely at sea against Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood but Brian Lara showed in a specialised nets session that he has still got it.
West Indies’ batters were caught out completely by the quality of Australia’s pace attack in the first Test in Adelaide, eventually losing the match by 10 wickets inside three days. Captain Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood both picked four wickets while Mitchell Starc took one as Australia bowled West Indies out for 188 in the first innings. Hazlewood then picked five wickets in the second and bowled the opposition out for 120, thus setting up a meagre 26-run target for Australia to chase.
The fast bowling trio of Hazlewood, Starc and Cummins has been widely rated among the greatest of all time in Test cricket and West Indies batting great and former captain Brian Lara gave a demonstration of how he would deal with pace bowling of that quality. Lara is part of the commentary team for Fox Cricket and gave a masterclass during day 2 of the match in an indoor nets session that was designed to replicate the Australian fast bowlers. The 54-year-old showed that he has still got it, cracking cover drives despite the ball being bowled at nearly 90mph.
“What I do a little bit of is premeditate,” Lara said when asked about how difficult it is to drive balls being bowled at such high speed. “So I would premeditate the next delivery, what I think he is going to deliver. If he doesn’t, it doesn’t mean that I am going to play a drive to a short ball. I’ll just adjust myself.(HT)