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West Indies manager Clive Lloyd has reacted angrily to the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) criticisms of his leadership.

Speaking to Australia's Melbourne Age on Tuesday, Lloyd blasted the ``performance targets'' board president Pat Rousseau had set for him as team manager, coach Malcolm Marshall and captain Brian Lara.

An animated Lloyd, the West Indies' most successful captain in history, appointed manager on a three-year contract in 1996, scoffed at the plan.

He was quoted as saying: ``Targets? The only target you can have is to win. What targets can you give a coach? What targets can you give a captain? Win one-and-a-half out of three, or one out of four?

``You've got to win. That's the important thing. What specific targets can you give anybody? We have the World Cup, and we have a Test series here.

``We'd love to know that we can win them. We'll try to win them. But targets?''

The 54-year-old Guyanese said that nobody had explained to him what these targets were. He said the most important thing was to win Test matches and that winning - like losing - was contagious.

He also came out strongly in Lara's defence, rejecting rumours that there had been a falling-out in South Africa between Lloyd and Marshall, on the one side, and Lara on the other.

Lloyd said Lara, like himself, needed only to concentrate on the target of winning. He expressed difficulty at precisely what would happen if Lara failed to improve his punctuality.

``Supposing we win the two Test matches and he does not make any runs,'' Lloyd said. ``Supposing we lose both and he makes hundreds. What do you do? What are the targets? What time does Brian Lara have to spend with younger players? When a Test series starts, or a One-Day series, it's normal for a captain to be invited to go and talk to people and encourage them. He does that, and I presume he does that for his island. What more do they want him to do?''

Lloyd admitted that the Trinidadian left-hander was not a good timekeeper, but there had been people like that in cricket. He hinted at cricketers who ``sleep through practice sessions. Denis Compton, Keith Miller - they were like that. I saw some of the English players here last year rushing out late. Wasn't Mike Gatting once late for a game in Melbourne? It's not new.

``People are acting as if things that are happening now have never happened before. If you highlight these things, and put them in the Press, you're putting pressure on the players.''