Lara goes on the defensive

Brian Lara has defended his decision to bat on for his world-record 400 not out in response to comments from Ricky Ponting, the Australian captain.

Ponting suggested Lara was more interested in his own personal achievements, rather than the state of the Test match. "Their whole first innings might have been geared around one individual performance and they could have let a Test match slip because of it," he commented. "They ran out of time in the game - that's not the way the Australian team plays."

Lara, though, replied by saying West Indies' main aim was first and foremost to avoid a 4-0 whitewash, and then put England under pressure. "Ponting is the leader of a great team and can afford, if situations like that present themselves, to take another course," he said. "I saw no sense in making it competitive for the English. I saw an opportunity that if we got in excess of 700 runs, we would put England under tremendous pressure for the remainder of the match. We would be able to enforce the follow-on, if that was the case, and would know for sure that we achieved our main goal, which was to avoid the whitewash in the series."

Matthew Hayden, the Australian batsman, was the previous world-record holder with 380, scored against Zimbabwe at Perth last year. Ponting conceded that occasion did involve an exception to the team rule, as Hayden was allowed to carry on batting with the record in sight. "It was a very rare thing, for Matty to be able to bat for as long as he did and go on and make that big score," said Ponting. "He was given the opportunity to go on and break Brian's record and he did that. He was going to be given another half an hour, or 20 minutes, to try to get to 400 but unfortunately he got out."