HIS recent returns have been encouraging, epitomized by his Man-of-the-Match performance in the West Indies’ victory over India in the third Pepsi Series Cup ODI match in Chennai on Saturday night.
But for Brian Lara, it is yet too early to declare that Marlon Samuels has finally found the consistency to complement the natural talent obvious since he was propelled into the West Indies team in Australia, aged 19, just over six years ago.
What the West Indies captain did concede was that Samuels has now proved himself a potential match-winner with his elegant batting and thoughtful off-spin bowling.
What he wants is a little more evidence that it is permanent and a few more of the younger players to place themselves in that category.
“I don’t know about turning the corner but what I do know is that, in the last two wins that we’ve had, Marlon Samuels was a top performer with the bat,” Lara said, a reference to the relaxed Jamaican’s unbeaten 100 off 99 balls in the West Indies’ only ODI victory in Pakistan last month.
“I think that’s something very good for us,” he added. “We are trying to build a lot more match winners in the team. We’ve got the likes of Chris Gayle, Chanderpaul and Sarwan so we need a lot more.”
Only modesty prevented him from listing himself in that category but his 82 off 85 balls was a timely indication that he is ready for his fourth, and undoubtedly last World Cup, in the Caribbean in March and April, now just Wednesday’s final match here and two warm-ups in Jamaica away.
But he stressed that the West Indies would not win the game’s premier tournament on the strength of their four most experienced players alone.
“We need to get a lot more guys performing at the top level,” he said/ “It was Marlon Samuels today, hopefully it will be someone else on Wednesday.”
Lara used Australia, the present benchmark team, as an example of the ideal. He might have mentioned that the great West Indies team under his present manager, Clive Lloyd, set similar standards during its era of near invincibility.
“You look at Australia, all their guys are match winners,” he noted. “Hopefully we can get a lot more out of Marlon, I think it is very important that he is consistent and that’s what we’re going to be aiming for.”
That would be now up to Samuels himself, Lara observed.
“He knows where his game is at the moment and he would love to improve it,” he said. He would love to be talked about so we just have to hope and pray that things work out for him.”
In Saturday’s match, Samuels checked India’s runaway scoring with 10 tight overs for 41, helping to drag them back from 168 for three when he came on in the 25th over to 268 all out in 48.
He then entered with the West Indies innings wobbling at 27 for two to stroke a chanceless 98 off 05 balls with a six and 13 fours, sharing a fourth wicket partnership of 124 from 21.1 overs with Lara that all but settled the outcome.
One aspect of Saturday’s victory disappointed Lara.
“I think we didn’t finish it off professionally, including myself,” he said of the loss of four wickets for 52 before the three-wicket margin was formalised.
“At the end of the day we had a victory but these little mistakes we have to iron out and ensure that it doesn’t happen in the future,” he added. “You don’t want to go into a World Cup match and end it like that. You want to be as convincing as possible.”
The West Indies must win the Wednesday match here to share the series. They went down to two narrow defeats in the first two matches at Nagpur and Cuttack before keeping in contention in Chennai.
Lara was not with the team when on the trip from Chennai, on the south-eastern coast, to Vadoradara on the opposite side of this continental side country. It took two flights, via Mumbai, and 10 hours from hotel to hotel.
Lara flew instead to the Maldives, the popular Indian Ocean destination a couple of hours flight out of Chennai, in acceptance of a private invitation. He will rejoin the team today.
