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Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer knows only too well how dangerous West Indies captain Brian Lara can be with the bat.

“I was the coach at Warwickshire (1994) when he scored 501 not out and scored eight centuries in a row,” Woolmer said on Thursday.

Lara’s fluent 122, his 33rd Test century, was not enough to rescue the West Indies from a nine-wicket defeat on Tuesday in the first Test of the three-match series against Pakistan.

“I know what Mr. Lara can do. He is my favourite player and probably the best batsman over the last decade,” Woolmer said.

Lara is the world’s leading Test scorer with 11,688 runs from 129 Test matches, and is third behind Indian batsmen Sachin Tendulkar (35) and Sunil Gavaskar (34) in scoring centuries.

“When he scored 501, he was bowled first ball and it was a no-ball,” Woolmer said of Lara’s feat for Warwickshire. “Then he got dropped on 23 by the wicket-keeper who said ‘I suppose he’ll score a hundred’ and he got 500,” he added.

Lara got a life on 48 in the first Test when Mohammad Hafeez failed to hold onto a sharp one-handed catch at point before Lara went on to score his century. “So when I see him dropped I don’t like it,” Woolmer said.

Woolmer was happy with the performance of his second string fast bowlers Umar Gul and Shahid Nazir, who shared 15 wickets in the absence of banned pacemen Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif. Woolmer, who took over as coach of Pakistan in 2004, was impressed with the talent Pakistan has in medium fast bowling.

“If we ask 30 bowlers from all the different teams in Pakistan to come down, we probably find two more who can do the similar job,” Woolmer said. “I think Pakistan has an abundance of riches in medium fast bowling and certainly conditions in Punjab are very good,” he added.

“Gul was superb and Nazir bowled very well. They bowled tight line and right areas. They caught the West Indies after lot of one-day cricket but we have to aware that they will come back hard on us,” he explained.

The second Test begins at Multan from Sunday, before Karachi hosts the last Test from Nov. 27. The Test series will be followed by five limited-overs internationals.
Source:The News