Wounded Lara leads fightback

Even on one leg, there's clearly still life in Brian Lara yet. But the second day of the tour match against Australia 'A' in Hobart represented yet another occasion on which its champion batsman and its line-up as a whole only limped and sputtered into action for West Indies.

Still waging a losing battle against a persistent hamstring injury, the brilliant left hander was compulsorily demoted to number seven in the batting order. And, by the time that he arrived at the wicket, his team had already crashed to 5/80 and was staring another debilitating defeat squarely in the face.

It was just as well, perhaps, that the defiant Ridley Jacobs (30*) was the man at the other end when his turn eventually came. For, in the doughty wicketkeeper-batsman, he found an ally at least capable of resisting for a long period the excellent line and length being maintained by a trio of wholehearted fast bowlers.

Initially, Lara (62*) scratched, scraped, hobbled, and looked vulnerable to another early dismissal. But he then did something he has rarely seemed close to managing on this troubled tour - purposefully built a first-class innings littered with a brace of flourishing strokes. Every exertion appeared painful as he began; a state of torment not assisted by some high class bowling from Don Nash (3/37), Andy Bichel (1/52) and Mathew Inness (1/24) that tested the star player's capacity to use his inconvenienced feet.

With Jacobs there to help him and his own confidence growing noticeably all the while, though, he added an important unbroken stand of ninety-two to help lead a mini-recovery at the end of the day. And, while it brought the tourists no closer than 267 runs to their opponents' imposing 9/439 declared, the liaison at least delivered something in the way of optimism to the West Indian camp.

Coach Roger Harper conceded that he would have preferred to have allowed his most accomplished batsman to recover from recent pain-killing injections for the entirety of the day. Necessarily, though, potential disaster in the West Indians' fate in the match became the mother of Lara's afternoon reinvention.

"He had a course of injections in Perth and he's still a bit sore," confirmed Harper.

"There's still some time before the Third Test starts in Adelaide and we hope that he'll be fully recovered."

"The soreness in his leg, the stiffness; he was having some treatment in the dressing room," said Harper of the decision to bat him so low in the order. "He wanted to rest it for a while and give himself as much time as possible prior to going out there. Ideally, we were hoping that he'd be needed tomorrow."

Lara's pain was eased, and his need to run hurriedly between the wickets negated, by his capacity to strike ten boundaries and a five in a hand that spanned only 103 minutes. He also seemed to experience more freedom when spinners Brad Oldroyd (0/29) and Simon Katich (0/29) were asked to bowl the closing twelve overs of the day.

Earlier, Australia 'A' had rocketed its way toward its lunch time closure with some highly spirited batting of its own. The in-form Katich (46) and Brad Hodge (14) disappeared in the midst of accurate spells from Marlon Black (1/71) and Kerry Jeremy (1/85) respectively. But wicketkeeper-batsman Brad Haddin (37), Nash (30 from fourteen ferociously played deliveries) and Bichel (20) maintained the tempo of the innings sweetly.

Perhaps mindful of the possibility that any of them might be called up to their country's Test team in the wake of the injury-enforced absence of Brett Lee, pacemen Nash, Bichel and Inness then forced the West Indians to endure a torrid start to the reply. Sherwin Campbell (9), Daren Ganga (18) and Wavell Hinds (40) all succumbed to miscued, and unwisely attempted, hook shots while Jimmy Adams (0) and Marlon Samuels (9) were beaten by deliveries of fuller length.