In this series the champion left-hander’s personal form has matched that of the West Indies team as a whole, and with his men trailing 0-3 in the series many feel he should step aside.

“I have another Test match to focus on,” he said, “so the time for assessing my position of captain is not now,” he told Saturday’s media conference before returning to the dressing room where he wept openly.

The West Indies team spent much of the night at Kensington Oval pondering on what went wrong. Players vented their feelings and the post mortem went on until after 10 p.m.

When interviewed by the Nation News, the West Indies captain Lara appeared to choke on his words.

“ I think the guys will be in a state of shock,” the captain said. “We lost against England and this hasn’t happened for 36 years so the guys are really hurting.

“A lot of the cricket out there is not really about inadequate technique,” West Indies captain Brian Lara said after Saturday’s defeat at Kensington that provided England with a third successive win in the 2004 Cable & Wireless contest and their first Caribbean series success in 36 years.

“It’s a lot of pressure mentally. You’ve got to be a big man to play Test cricket."

“We’ve got a lot of young guys playing. They are going to learn. Hopefully, the psychological effect is not going to be lasting.

“It could be if we get into that mood of losing a lot. It can have an effect on you for a long time. That’s what we’ve got to be very carful of.”

“We really have to regroup, get it together and get it going in Antigua.”

The burden he carried into the match was, therefore, greater than any West Indies captain could ever have known – except he himself.

As he acknowledged, he was once more drinking in the last chance saloon.

“The next five days are very important in terms of my future as captain,” he said prior to the match. “No captain, no team, wants to go down for the first time in their history as losing all their Test matches at home.”

But he had travelled the same rocky path before and he k the way out.

AS he did five years ago, Brian Lara, this Easter week end, once more transformed a situation of deep personal and team crisis into one of critical revival and triumph at the scene of his most celebrated innings.

Lara, the modern game’s greatest exponent of batsmanship took the burden of all his West Indian people on his shoulders and transformed despair into a triumph.

Click for a great success story

All information courtesy of the Nation News.

Contributing writers Phillip Spooner, Tony Cozier, Hayden Gill and Andi Thornhill.

Photography Brooks LaTouche Photography

Caribbean Holidays

Caribbean Accommodation