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Lara wary of home support

RSS / / 20 February 2007 /

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West Indies skipper Brian Lara feels that playing the World Cup in the Caribbean could work against his side due to the added pressure of the vocal home crowd.

The Windies last reached the final of the tournament back in 1983, when they were hot favourites to make it three successive World Cup triumphs, but lost to India by 43 runs at Lord's.

Despite their recent woes in the five-day game, the West Indies have the nucleus of a decent one-day outfit, with a mixture of experience and youth, and are many people's tip to cause a shock when the tournament gets underway next month.

Lara feels that hosting the tournament could help some of his players, but others might be affected by the weight of expectation from the cricket-mad home support.

"Playing at home should help and we have guys on the verge of becoming world-class players, like (Jerome) Taylor, (Dwayne) Bravo and (Marlon) Samuels.

"A lot is expected of the experienced players - (Shivnarine) Chanderpaul, (Chris) Gayle, (Ramnaresh) Sarwan and myself - but we have to create more match-winners.

"In another sense it could be a disadvantage to be playing at home - do we have the strength of character to cope with the pressure?"

Much has been made about the state of a number of the Caribbean pitches leading into the tournament but Lara is confident that the 2007 World Cup will be a run-feast.

"I think teams will score in excess of 250. The grounds have fast outfields and they are not the biggest," he added.

"Australia are based in St Kitts and there could be records falling there. The wickets will be good."

Lara's men are the 1.81 favourites to win Group D, with Pakistan on offer at 2.2, Zimbabwe trade at 50 and Ireland are the outsiders at 100.

Look out for Lara in the Top Runscorer market, with the left-handed maestro on offer at 22.

Australia skipper Ricky Ponting trades as the 8.6 favourite, while South Africa skipper Graeme Smith is available at 14, Gayle is on offer at 16 and Sachin Tendulkar can be backed at 18.

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