Lara to lead West Indies in New York

Brian Lara will lead a West Indies squad against an All-Stars United States team in two promotional one-day matches in New York on July 8 and 9. Cricket International, a New York-based cricket publication, one of the sponsors of the event, confirmed Lara's availability along with that of several other West Indies players.

"I have not played cricket there for some time, so I, personally, am looking forward [to] getting there, and I know a lot of my team-mates are supposed to be coming over and playing those two matches," he has been quoted as saying by the Jamaica Gleaner. "It is always good to spread your wings and get across to a different sort of audience and I am hoping that we can have a lot of Americans as well. It's exciting, and it's going to be good cricket."

Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Chris Gayle, Dwayne Smith, Daren Ganga, Fidel Edwards, Corey Collymore, Runako Morton, Denesh Ramdin, Ian Bradshaw and Rawl Lewis are expected to be in the West Indies squad.

Both matches wil be played at the Floyd Bennett Park in Brooklyn.