Friday, March 30, 2007

We need four from four, says Lara

Dejected West Indies captain Brian Lara admitted on Thursday that his side need to win all four of their remaining Super Eights games if they are to salvage their World Cup dream.
The hosts slumped to a second defeat in two days when New Zealand coasted to a seven-wicket win at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, adding to the West Indies' problems after their 103-run defeat to Australia on Wednesday.
Now Lara's side will have to defeat Sri Lanka, South Africa, Bangladesh and England if they are to have any hope of making the semi-finals.
"We will have to win those four," said Lara.
"It was always going to be a luxury to lose your first two matches in the Super Eights. We didn't want to do that first up. Now we are down to the fighting part of the tournament. There are four games left and we need to win them all if we are to qualify," he said.
"Losing the toss played a small part but we were 60-1 after 15-16 overs and we were in a strong position," added Lara.
"But we lost some quick wickets which set us back again. It looked like a 250-plus track. We got some early wickets but when you are defending 177 you need to get 10 wickets to win the match."
New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming admitted it was a good toss to win and that his bowlers laid the foundation for victory.
"The opening bowlers created a lot of pressure and Jacob took the wickets that they could easily have had," said Fleming who did his part when the Kiwis batted with a gritty 45.
"We took wickets at key times and kept them to a score which was below par. Then we knew that if we batted out the overs we would win. We were pretty conservative because we knew that after Daren Powell and Corey Colleymore, the West Indies didn't have a lot of resources."
New Zealand's next match is against Bangladesh here on Monday but the Black Caps are aware of the danger posed by the Asian side, who beat them in a pre-tournament warm-up match.

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