West Indies captain Brian Lara - Reuters

West Indies skipper Brian Lara called the century scored by middle-order batsman Marlon Samuels special and is actually hoping he continues his present role as a 'match-winner'.

Samuels hit an even, unbeaten hundred in a blistering late order assault - hitting the ball ferociously right out of the meat of the bat - against the Kenyan bowling, to lead the Windies to 268 for five and a 21-run victory in their ICC WI CWC 2007 warm-up game at the multi-purpose stadium in Trelawny yesterday.

"It always is very special. Every time Marlon scores runs you can expect something special from him and again today was a very good innings for us and you just have to hope that he carries on," Lara told journalists in a post match interview.

"At this present time he's getting more of an opportunity and he's making full use of it," Lara pointed out. "One of the things we stress is to try and find more match-winners in the team and he's sort of finding his way to that level."

Lack of 'intensity'

Commenting on the overall performance of the team, Lara said the team lacked intensity.

" ... It was a warm-up for the team and ... of course, it lacked the intensity, especially at the time when we took the field, the guys were getting three per over. Some guys were playing their first game for quite some time."

The captain said against Kenya, one of the lower-ranked teams in international cricket, he was expecting a higher total but still expressed some amount of satisfaction with the total.

The West Indies' next warm-up match is on Friday against India and Lara predicted that they will step up their effort in that clash.

"India is a much more formidable opponent and somebody who we'll be looking to get that psychological advantage over ... and the guys will be looking to working their way into their stride and working towards Friday."

Meanwhile, Kenya's captain Steve Tikolo expressed disappointment at losing, and noted Samuels' knock as the key to their loss.

"We're disappointed. We did well up front but we let them get away in the end," said Tikolo, one of his team's main contributors with 34, along with Collins Obuya (53) and Ravindu Shah (41).

- A.B.