Ponting

ST. JOHN'S, Antigua (Reuters):

West Indies captain Brian Lara will use all the weapons at his command today including history, crowd support and his own special skills in the World Cup Super Eights match against champions Australia.

Lara told a news conference yesterday that West Indies had enjoyed some successes against the Australians, including a win during the preliminary stages of the Champions Trophy last year.

"Australia are favourites and will continue to be until they exit the tournament or win the tournament," he said on the eve of the opening Super Eights clash.

"We have had some successes against them in the recent past but we know it's going to be tough."

Lara said neither team had played at the new Sir Vivian Richards stadium, named after the island's most famous cricketing son and built in partnership with China.

"The pitch looks good, it's void of grass, it looks pretty good for a one-day game," he said.

"The crowd support has been tremendous. I'm sure now the game has moved into the second stage that the crowd is going to be even more intense."

Lara, now in the twilight of a career which has gathered him more Test runs than any other batsman as well as the highest Test and first-class individual scores, remains the batsman the opposition fear most.

SO-CALLED KEY PLAYER

"That's the thing that actually drives me," he said. "That the opposition is going to come after the so-called key player. That's the thing that's going to bring a positive response from somebody like me."

Both West Indies and Australia won each of their group games, giving them a bonus of two points at the start of the Super Eights.

"It will take a pretty good solid team performance for us to beat the West Indies, they should know the conditions as well as anybody and they will have very good crowd support," said Australia captain Ricky Ponting.

"The wicket out there for tomorrow's game looks particularly good, it has a nice little shine on the top and I'd expect the new ball to slide on to the bat pretty nicely so once we get through the new ball we are going to see some handy runs."