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Manager Clive Lloyd was last night trying to persuade Brian Lara to play today in the West Indies' final preparation match for the World Cup, against county team Surrey at the Oval.

Lloyd was hoping the strongest team would take the field and said key fast bowlers Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh would be in the eleven. Like Lara, neither of the veterans appeared in the earlier matches against Gloucestershire at Bristol last Sunday (abandoned after 16 overs) nor against Warwickshire at Edgbaston on Monday, which the West Indies won.

If Lara decides to play, it would be the captain's first game since the fourth One-Day International in the preceding series against Australia on April 18.

After that, he withdrew to protect a sore right wrist that had not properly healed since South African Jacques Kallis inflicted a hairline fracture in an International at Durban on January 18.

'Up to him'

``You can understand that Brian doesn't want to take any chances at all that he might get hit on the wrist again in these warm-up games,'' Lloyd said last night. ``It's obvious he's building himself up to do well in the tournament and is very keen to be at his fittest and his best for the real thing.

``But I feel he needs to have an innings in a match situation and this is the last chance,'' he added. ``It's up to Brian to make up his mind in the morning.''

Lara had two lengthy net sessions, the first on Monday at the Edgbaston ground that was his home during two seasons with Warwickshire, and again at the Oval yesterday.

``The wrist is getting better all the time and it'll be ready come the first match on Sunday,'' he said. ``The World Cup only comes around once every four years; it's the biggest thing in cricket and I'm looking forward to the West Indies doing well.''

That opening match is against Pakistan who have the most talented and best balanced, if not the most temperamentally sound, team of the 12.

Strong attack

Their bowling, with the experienced and fast left-arm swing of captain Wasim Akram, the speed of Waqar Younis, the seam of Azhar Mahmood, the combined spin of Saqlain Mushtaq, Shahid Afridi and Mushtaq Ahmed, and the new ``fastest man in the world'', Shoaib Akhtar, is as strong and as varied as there is at the moment.

A couple of net sessions as groundwork for that challenge cannot equate to a good innings against reasonable county bowling in the kind of conditions Lara is likely to confront for the next six weeks.

England in May is far different to the weather and the pitches Lara encountered in South Africa and the West Indies on his most recent assignments.

Stuart Williams strained a leg muscle in training yesterday and Lloyd said he was an unlikely starter for today's match.

If Lara decides to stand down again, Jimmy Adams will again captain the team and bat at No.3. He will be preceded by Sherwin Campbell and Ridley Jacobs and followed by Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ricardo Powell, Keith Arthurton, Phil Simmons and four bowlers.

In his first match for the West Indies, Lloyd said the 20-year-old Powell, Carl Hooper's last-minute replacement, ``struck the ball well'' in his 32 against Warwickshire on Monday. When Lara returns and Williams is fit, he will be on duty as 12th man but those who were at Edgbaston report that he showed that he would not be out of his depth in any final XI.

It is a comforting thought.