BRIAN LARA and Mark Waugh are promising an absorbing battle when West Indies take on Australia for a World Cup final place in Chandigarh today.

Lara boasts the highest individual score for Test and first-class cricket, while Waugh has already scored three centuries and the most runs in a World Cup tournament.

After a somewhat subdued start in the opening matches, Lara moved into top gear with a dashing half-century in West Indies' final group A game against Australia.

He then topped that by plundering the second fastest World Cup century to spur West Indies to victory over the strongly-fancied South Africans in Monday's quarter-final. His 100 in Karachi took just one ball more than Clive Lloyd's 82-ball century for West Indies in the 1975 final.

A few hours later, in Madras, Waugh was not to be outdone as he hammered a century to help Australia overcome a gallant challenge by New Zealand, although he needed 20 more balls than Lara to reach three figures.

Waugh's 110, just one run less than Lara's final total against South Africa, took his tournament aggregate to 472 in five matches - one more than the previous record set by England's Graham Gooch in the 1987 World Cup.

Each can be expected to play in his own fashion today, but where Waugh has been supported by solid performances from Australia's other batsmen, the West lndian middle order has shown an alarming tendency to disintegrate. Even in heating South Africa, they almost threw away the advantage Lara had given them by losing five wickets in the space of 20 runs.

Failure by Lara would seem to leave West Indies vulnerable. Failure by Waugh is more likely to be compensated for by one of his team-mates.

West Indies cricket reached an all-time low when they were badly beaten by part-timers Kenya in the group stage, but since then they have gone on to beat two of the tournament's strongest t9ams, Australia and South Africa, in successive matches.

Australia must be concerned about the quality of their bowling after it was smashed all round the field by New Zealand's Lee Germon and Chris Harris in a partnership of 168, a World Cup record for the fourth wicket.

Admittedly the pitch at Madras was a batsman's paradise, but then most one-day pitches are deliberately prepared that way. The worry for captain Mark Taylor must be that none of his bowlers maintained a consistent line and length.

Against that, a fired-up West Indies pace attack are likely to give nothing away, especially in the early overs, as Australia found in their last meeting.