Cricinfo Select

St Lucia is a delightful island of Caribbean vibes. At night the liming strip in Rodney Bay has come alive for comers from all over the world. Beres Hammond, Sean Paul and David Rudder have performed. Shaggy and Maxi Priest will tonight. But Lucians don't much talk about cricket - or listen to it, as Tuesday's Jamaica semi-final did not come over the radio. There has never been a Test cricketer out of here and the few locals who were at Beausejour will not have been bowled over by what they saw.

Brian Lara, maker of epics, will bat one last time on Saturday. As ever, man and batsman, leader and performer, will take stage together in familiar conflict. Appointed captain a third time specifically for the Caribbean World Cup, he had some encouraging success with the one-day side but ultimately leaves behind this botched campaign as his final mark. Humiliation still fresh in their minds, but still the momentousness of the exit of the most brilliant batsman of his time before their eyes, West Indians will be divided. To savour him one last time or blame him one last time?

Saturday could be the last time we watch Brian Lara in an international match. Anyone who has a feel for cricket will mourn his loss, for no batsman in the last 15 years has brought more joy to spectators. But paradoxically, West Indian cricket is unlikely to miss him.

For a batsman good enough to have been the world Test number one, Michael Vaughan has had a wretched World Cup. He opens England's batting, yet he goes into today's crunch game against South Africa with an average like a handy tailender (16) and the strike rate of a Seventies stonewaller (55). Vaughan has managed no fifties, no sixes, and only 15 fours off 203 balls. Of England's 1455 runs in the tournament, only 113 have come from his cultured bat. He has faced 75 more balls than England's new boy, Ravi Bopara, and made one more run. As World Cup openers go, he is the poor man's William Porterfield.

Only an ambush will be able to stop Australia. That's the consensus after a bizarre and deliberately staged mismatch between the team most tipped to win the World Cup and their nearest - yet still distant - challenger. After Stephen Fleming last week managed the pace of New Zealand's defeat against Sri Lanka in a bid to enhance their longevity in the competition, this time it was the Sri Lankans who indulged in a bit of by-play. Knock-out time is nearing, but the pretenders to Australia's title are still wheeling around the favourite, ducking and bobbing and striving for the merest hint of an opening.

Adversity is known to test character. It can provoke reactions ranging from panic and hysteria to composure and creativity. Over the past two days, the Board of Control for Cricket in India has shown itself to be schizophrenic. Its response to the recent decline of the Indian team ranged from the pragmatic and progressive to the shrill and slyly opportunistic.

Review meetings are meant to be eyewashes. Not much more than some token nip and tuck was expected of the two-day meeting of the Board of Control for Cricket in India to discuss its team's embarrasssing early return from the World Cup. What has emerged instead is a series of tough, some would even say harsh, measures aimed at reining in some of the game's biggest - and, in the eyes of the board, truant - superstars. The message to them is strong, and it has been delivered in the bluntest manner possible.

When marriages end, even the happiest of them, they end badly. And this was never a happy marriage to begin with; in that sense, the circumstances of Greg Chappell's departure comes as no surprise.

One of the most tumultuous chapters in Indian cricket has come to an end with Greg Chappell ruling himself out of contention for the Indian coaching job. Perhaps he merely pre-empted the inevitable; it was difficult to see how he could have carried on. The differences between him and many of those whom he was to manage had become far too wide and far beyond healthy.

If there was any chance of Greg Chappell continuing his tenure as coach of India it probably disappeared when Bob Woolmer was murdered during the World Cup.