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SYDNEY, April 19 - Australia captain Ricky Ponting
said he doubts an Australian will break Brian Lara's test record
of 400 not out because the team is more interested in winning. Ponting said it was unlikely an Australian skipper would
give a batsman the time needed to beat the record because it
would jeopardise the team's chances of victory. Lara broke the record in West Indies' drawn test with
England in Antigua last week, beating the 380 set by Australia's
Matthew Hayden against Zimbabwe last year. "It's hard to imagine an Australian player doing it, just
because of the way we play our cricket. It's generally not the
way we play," Ponting told reporters on Monday. "I've read some of the reports in the paper over the last
couple of days about Lara's innings. Their whole first innings
might have been geared around one individual performance and
they could have let a test match slip because of it. "They ran out of time in the game and that's not the way the
Australian team plays." Ponting said Hayden had been given time to make 380, beating
the 375 set by Lara in 1994, because he had scored his runs so
quickly. Australia went on to win the match by an innings. "It was a very rare thing what we did with that Zimbabwean
test match, for Matty to be able to bat for as long as he did
and go on and make that big score," Ponting said. "It would be nice if you could be the world record holder
but at the end of the day, as we've seen, it doesn't necessarily
win you a test match, which is what we're all about."
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