Lara's plea to greats

Brian Lara is pleading with West Indies stars of old to help rather than hammer his struggling team.

'I am urging the great players of the past to come forward, not with your opinion of what is going wrong with West Indies cricket but with advice about what made you the best at what you did,' begged Lara ahead of this week's third Test against England.

Lara and his team are being bombarded with criticism from all quarters of the Caribbean and former fast bowler Colin Croft even called on Lara to quit as captain last week.

The under pressure skipper conceded in his Trinidad newspaper column that 'maybe all of us who have an effect on West Indies cricket should rethink our positions', but then added: 'But the timing must be right.'

He did not sound like a captain about to resign. Instead, he believes the moment has come to learn from a past when West Indies were the undisputed kings of cricket.

'This team needs the positive energy of some of these role models,' said Lara.

'What we need is a closer relationship with our history and the great legacy that we seem to be slowly dismantling. Tapping into the emotional side of our players is the key to getting the best out of them.'