Cricket: Sarwan Lifts Hope of Life After Lara

The future must feel like a faraway land for West Indies but yesterday morning they might just have been afforded a fleeting glimpse.

When Brian Lara left the field shortly after injuring his right hand at slip, the captaincy passed to Ramnaresh Sarwan, a man 11 years Lara's junior but with an increasingly old head on his youngish shoulders.

The results were impressive: England lost their last seven second-innings wickets for 64 - with some help from Sarwan's direct hit from long-on to get rid of Marcus Trescothick. And, though it would be far too simplistic to ascribe the collapse to West Indies' change of leadership - England were, after all, playing their strokes safe in the knowledge that they had a 230-run first-innings cushion - the mini-session will be used as extra ammunition for those sniping at Lara at every opportunity.

The latest marksman is none other than the former chairman of selectors Sir Viv Richards, who prefers the blunderbuss to the silencer and claims that Lara "does not possess what he needs to motivate the team".

Richards's comments need to be seen in the context of a tricky personal relationship with Lara but he is just the latest figure in Caribbean cricket to air his doubts. Last night, with yet another chance of a series victory gone, Lara was insisting that he was still very much in charge.

Many observers, however, already refer to Sarwan as "the future West Indies captain", as if his graduation from the vice-captaincy is written in the stars, rather than simply in the selectors' notebooks. In June the respected Caribbean broadcaster Tony Cozier even called for him to be handed the job immediately following Lara's threat to resign if West Indies failed to win the second Test against Bangladesh in Jamaica.

Win it they did, with Sarwan making an unbeaten 261, the highest score by a Guyanese in Test history, but Lara's statement was interpreted as a sign both of his growing frustration in the job and of false bravado. Imagine Kevin Keegan threatening in advance to step down if Manchester City lose to, say, Crewe Alexandra.

Before the start of the series Sarwan spoke of how he and his colleagues regard it as a "dream" to be in the same dressing-room as the only man to have reached 400 in a Test innings. But there are those who feel that Sarwan inspires more affection from his team-mates than Lara can ever hope to achieve. The way they responded to his cajoling in the field yesterday morning certainly did nothing to counter the claim.

Like Mike Atherton before him, Sarwan has been inked in for great things from an early age. He was the youngest player, at 16, to appear in West Indies first-class cricket and last year was handed the vice-captaincy of the national side at 23. And, although Cozier recently wrote of a "lingering immaturity", the perception is that Sarwan is increasingly demonstrating the right stuff.

His 137 here in the first innings after West Indies had slipped to 12 for two was full of character. But his bravest last stand took place during a World Cup game against Sri Lanka in Cape Town in February 2003, when he was carried off by stretcher to hospital after being hit on the head by a delivery from Dilhara Fernando. Yet he returned to the crease wearing only his maroon cap and almost steered West Indies to a heroic win.

At a time when dedication - or the lack of it - crops up in just about every conversation about Caribbean cricket, it was a gesture that did not go unnoticed.

Lara's problem right now is that he is fairly conspicuous himself. Every time he winces, places his hand on his hips or changes the field, the amateur psychoanalysts come out to play. The truth is that he is an often imaginative but increasingly flawed captain in charge of one of the weakest West Indies sides in history.

Even Mike Brearley might have struggled with this lot, let alone the 24-year-old Sarwan. But at the moment he is the man in waiting. And West Indies are getting impatient.