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He said it well before the West Indies were humbled by nine wickets by India in yesterday's warm-up match but master batsman Brian Lara says this is the time the World Cup 'host hoodoo' can be beaten.
"We've played in two ICC tournaments between the 2003 World Cup and now and we've won one and got to the final of the other, so we know we have the players capable of doing very well. And the Caribbean has unique conditions for cricket, which we're accustomed to. The hosts have never done well in the World Cup but we can turn the tables on that."
Lara expects the West Indies, Australia, South Africa and one other to make the last four. It was said during the Ashes series that Ricky Ponting had become the world's best batsman. With a record 11,953 test runs, perhaps Lara might disagree?
He chuckles. "No, I have no argument with that, although I prefer to appreciate every player for what he brings to the game, including the guys who are not fashionable, or exciting, the likes of Rahul Dravid. If I wanted someone to bat for my life, it would be Dravid, not Ponting, playing those hook shots off his front foot."
The 10th of 11 children, Lara believes his place in his family was a big factor in his cricketing development. "It was tough just to get a game on the street with my bigger brothers and their friends, so if I did get a hit, as an eight-year-old playing with 16-year-olds, I had to be good. There came a time when I was 10-years-old and they couldn't get me out all afternoon."
But it wasn't just cricket at which he excelled in his youth. When he was 11, he played football for Trinidad against Tobago, in a match to determine the Trinidad & Tobago under-12 team for a tournament. "After that game, there were two names pencilled down first. One was Dwight Yorke, only eight-years-old and already something special. The other was Russell Latapy, who's now the player-coach at Falkirk. The three of us have remained great friends." Another broad grin. "We're the three musketeers."
While the other two musketeers pursued football careers, Lara smashed all records as a schoolboy cricketer and in 1989, aged 19, got into the West Indies test squad just days before his beloved father died.
"But I didn't make the team and he died during the first test in Trinidad. At least he knew I'd made the squad but I'd give anything to have my father watching me at a test, sitting alongside Sir Vivian Richards."
Does he know exactly how many test runs he has scored?
"I know I'm 40 or 50 short of 12,000 but it's not something I focus on. It's nice to pass milestones and to go past a player such as Allan Border was momentous but I'd give everything up to be part of a successful team over the last 10 years.
"I don't ever say that I wish I'd played in the 1970s and 1980s when the West Indies were invincible, because I've enjoyed a good camaraderie with the present players [although not the selectors, who have relieved him more than once of the captaincy]. It's been a privilege but I regret that I've played through the decline of West Indies cricket."
The World Cup, he hopes, will arrest that decline. Despite 19 centuries in one-day internationals and an average of more than 40, Lara's recent form has been unremarkable. He makes no bones of his preference for test cricket - "for myself there is no comparison, test matches are the true test of a cricketer's ability"- and yet he insists he is raring to go. Lara considers Australia to be the World Cup favourites and is looking forward to renewing a personal rivalry one more time.
"Playing against [Glenn] McGrath for the last time will be special and I hope we face each other in the final. The last time I played test cricket against him, at Adelaide in 2005, the two big boys, McGrath and [Shane] Warne, both got me out. But I also scored a double-century [226, which took him past 11,000 runs] against them. That was something for the archives."
- THE INDEPENDENT
