Lara warns Ponting to leave a legacy

West Indian batting master Brian Lara returned to Australian shores this week with advice for Australia's skipper Ricky Ponting : don't leave the game until you are sure the team can continue the legacy of Australian cricket.

Lara, on a whistle-stop promotional tour in a prelude to the West Indies visit this summer, sees similarities between Ponting's career path and his own.

Both men have overseen a period of cricketing transition for their countries, while personally having their names and batting heroics already confirmed in cricket folklore.

"Ricky Ponting has done a tremendous job," Lara told Yahoo7 Sport. "But Australia is no longer as invincible as it has been under Steve Waugh in the past, and when he himself had Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath in their prime."

"The rest of the world is no longer intimidated by Australia, and it's something [Ricky] will have to come to terms with.

"When Ricky leaves he should leave a team that he feels is capable of taking Australia back to some semblance of the invincibility that they once had.

The second highest run-scorer in test history expressed his regret as the West Indies lost a host of cricket legends to retirement in the 80s and 90s.

"We feel very badly, not as players, but us as a group that we didn't do the same for the West Indies."

Despite his words of warning Lara also still sees a lot of firepower available to what he called a 'formidable' Australian side that will meet the West Indies.

"You're talking about an Australian team that just lost the Ashes."

"The last time Australia lost the Ashes they rebounded a few months later and dominated a World XI.

"Ricky Ponting and company would like to put the Ashes behind them and the West Indies may be on the receiving end."

Lara has been impressed by Australia's young brigade in recent times - in particular Mitchell Johnson - but he reserved special praise for Australia's newly appointed Twenty20 captain Michael Clarke.

"Michael Clarke has been a favourite of mine to watch."

"Not only is he a great young man - and likely Australia's next captain - but a very good player."

A West Indian team disrupted by internal politics and board disputes for most of the year, is expected to arrive at full strength to kick-off their tour against Queensland on November 18.

"The best West Indies team has not played together as unit for six or seven months," says Lara.

"The West Indies B and C team that struggled against Bangladesh recently is not ready to represent us the way we want to be represented."

"It's a step in the right direction to have the best team here,"

Lara acknowledged current West Indies captain Chris Gayle had an unenviable task of bringing his fractured side together for a difficult tour of Australia.

"There is a lot to be positive about in West Indies cricket right now."

"Fidel Edwards and Jerome Taylor and a group of young fast bowlers are coming together well.

"They haven't yet filled the shoes of the Malcolm Marshalls and Courtney Walshes of the past - but they are doing a lot of good things as a unit.

"Not long ago we beat the team that won the Ashes one-nil in the Caribbean. There's certainly a lot of sporadic positives to take out of our game."

Lara says he left the game at the conclusion of the 2007 cricket World Cup with petrol still in his tank but doesn't think he left the game too early.

"I left at a time when West Indian cricket needed some sort of change."

"I opted to see if my absence could bring a new unity or something else to the game that would get the team going again.

He remains passionate about helping the West Indies recapture its cricketing glory days.

"I was a cricketer, I will always be a cricketer and it's a deep part of me, so I'd say it's odds on that I will have something to do with cricket in the future."

The man who accomplished so much in the game will, however, leave it without one accolade that he richly deserves - a cricketing knighthood.

The batsman shares the same fate as fellow cricket legend and compatriot Clive Lloyd, born in a nation ineligible to receive the honour.

*Brian Lara is currently in Australia promoting Angostura's Lemon, Lime and Bitters for the company Island to Island ahead of Australia's summer of cricket.