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Star batsman Brian Lara has cried out that the West Indies' horrific sequence from one humiliation to another has scarred him mentally.

In an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live's Sportsweek programme, the former captain said:"Over the last three years we've lost 15 Tests out of 17 away from home and that is damaging psychologically. It has left a huge scar not only on my career but on me as a person."

"These are things you never thought would happen in West Indies cricket while you were watching on the outside," said the Trinidadian left-hander who is the double world record holder for Test and first-class scores.

Lara has struggled desperately for form. A fine 182 in the third Test against Australia proved a false dawn for the fourth when he made 16 and 0 as his side crashed to a 352-run defeat to trail 4-0 in the series.

Recalling his four-month spell out of the game earlier in the year, he insisted he would not be retiring.

"I had a little sabbatical. No thoughts of retiring entered my mind, but it's tough, cricket. Getting into your 30s, you don't feel the same as in your early 20s. I've been suffering from a few injuries, but to leave cricket at this time isn't the sort of thing that I'd like to do. I'm just 31 now and batsmen normally go on into their late '30s. I don't know whether I'm going to go that far but I'd love to play in another series against England. I can't leave my career losing against England and that would be in another three or four years."

Examining the West Indies decline from superpowers to also-rans, Lara said: "Maybe the foresight wasn't there when we were very successful in the late '70s and early '80s."

"The Caribbean is all Third World islands and it's very tough to raise the money for sports."

He added: "The West Indies Cricket Board might have been working with a small budget. And maybe they were hoping we had the natural ability coming through and things were going to carry on."

© The Barbados Nation