Plea to pace duo

London - Both Brian Lara and Sir Viv Richards yesterday urged Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh to keep on bowling through the West Indies tour to Australia later this year.

It was as much an acknowledgement of the remarkable durability of the two veteran fast bowlers as concern over the lack of consistency from their support cast. The gap between them was never more starkly evident that in the second Test the West Indies lost at Lord's on Saturday by two wickets in three days to level the series 1-1.

While Walsh had match figures of ten for 117 from 40.5 overs and Ambrose five for 52 from 36 overs, Franklyn Rose's solitary wicket cost him 99 from 23 overs and Reon King's 41 from 18 overs.

Writing in his weekly column in a Sunday newspapers, Lara noted that the 36-year-old Ambrose had stated before the team left the Caribbean that he would retire at the end of the current England tour. He pleaded with him to 'think again'.

'Of course, the final decision is up to him, he will know best,' the former captain added. 'But I am sure I speak for everyone in the West Indies dressing room when I say we want him to go on for as long as possible.'

Lara conceded that the West Indies needed the young bowlers to come through, but he observed that the way Ambrose and 37-year-old Courtney Walsh are performing, 'age means nothing'.

The sentiments were echoed by Richards, another former West Indies captain and star batsman.

Commenting of BBC's Test Match Special, where he is one of the analysts, Richards said: 'If I had anything to do with it, I would be going down on my knees and asking Curtly and Courtney to go to Australia.'

'They have the experience, they are bowling as well as ever and keep fit,' he added. 'We need them and we should try to keep them playing.'

Lara noted that, unlike Ambrose, Walsh had set no time limit on his career and that it was 'a probability rather than a possibility' that he would carry his record number of Test wickets past 500 in Australia. He now has 467.

Lara revealed that Ambrose was hinting at a change of mind.

'Intriguingly, even during this series, Curtly has talked with obvious relish and almost every day about the prospect of bowling during the first session in a Test in Brisbane and about the carry he gets to the wicket-keeper in Perth,' he wrote.

Walsh started his Test career in 1984 under Clive Lloyd's captaincy. He became Test cricket's leading wicket-taker in the second Test against Zimbabwe in his native Kingston last March and has claimed at least five wickets in an innings in each of the last four of his 119 Tests.

The first of Ambrose's 95 Tests was in Georgetown against Pakistan in 1988, under Richards' captaincy.

His five wickets in the Lord's Test carried his overall count to 394.