Lara tells his team-mates to sharpen up

Brian Lara has called for his team-mates to buck up their ideas ahead of West Indies' series against Bangladesh, and not let his world-record 400 not out paper over the cracks in the side after their 3-1 series defeat to England.

"We're playing against Bangladesh and I'm not going to write off Bangladesh. The way we're playing right now you can't write off anybody at all," Lara said. "We're not putting an entire game together. Bangladesh can come and score 500 and put us under pressure. We can be batting first and all of a sudden we collapse. We have to learn from our experience."

He continued, "The only way we are going to see results - we have spoken about it over and over - is to put in big efforts. The players need to accept their responsibilities. The public has been great; you saw the turn-out here and against Australia last year. They were happy and you could hear them singing: `No whitewash, no whitewash.' The players have got to understand they have to come up to scratch. We can't be making a step forward and two backwards. We have to compete consistently at a certain level."

Again the majority of West Indies' batting fell on Lara's shoulders, and while he struggled in the first three Tests, so did the rest of the batsmen. The only time England were put under the cosh was in the final game when Lara achieved the small matter of reclaiming his world record with that 400 not out.

Lara added it was a special feeling to have his record back, but he felt the public would prefer to support a more cohesive team, rather than individual landmarks. "People are going to rejoice. You must remember that Sir Garfield Sobers had the record before I broke it. I held it for ten years, lost it for six months, now it's back in the Caribbean," he said. "But I think they would more appreciate it if we could get a more collective effort from the entire team. West Indies cricket does not at this time want to depend on one or two individual records. They want to see team performances going out there and that's what we want to focus on right now."