He opened with Desi Haynes at the start of his career, and was clearly their best batsman in the 92 world cup when they could have picked Phil Simmons. In fact, he opened when they arguably had the best opening batting options of his career. Lara needs the fielding restrictions of the first fifteen overs to really perform at his best in limited overs, that is why his record at opening and 3 is far superior to anything he provided lower down the order. He is no match for Viv at 3, players like Javed were better down the order so Lara doesn't feature for me unless he has the chance of fighting for the opening slot (even then I wouldn't have picked him).