West Indies can defend the trophy: Lara

Brian Lara, the West Indies captain, has expressed confidence that his side would qualify for the main round of the Champions Trophy in India. Despite being the winners in 2004, West Indies have been forced to play the qualifying round since they couldn't manage a place among the top six teams in the ICC rankings before the cut-off date of April 1, 2006.
West Indies arrived in New Delhi on Saturday evening after a week-long preparatory camp in Kuala Lumpur. They play three qualifying matches, against Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and are one of the favourites to qualify, along with Sri Lanka. The opening match against Zimbabwe gets underway on October 8 in Ahmedabad.
Lara stated that the qualifying matches would benefit the team. "It's a bit unfortunate but we found ourselves in that predicament," he told reporters. "It's our predicament, we've got to try sort this first part of the tournament out and get some positives out of it. Most importantly we'll be playing three games and if we get into the 'real' championship we'll have some sort of match readiness going into that series so there is some plus to it at the present time.
"If we can't get past the likes of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh to get into the second stage of the tournament, we're really suffering and I expect us to get to the finals and get to defend our trophy."
Lara dwelled on the success of the one-day series against India at home, which West Indies won 4-1 and was proud of the fact that the side qualified for the finals of the DLF Cup in Kuala Lumpur after a layoff.
"We played very good cricket then (in the West Indies this year) in all departments of the game. We have not played international or competitive cricket for some time and the guys were coming off holidays and getting into the DLF Cup which was an impromptu tournament. We weren't really match-fit but to get to the finals credit must be given to the team."
He admitted that the batting was a cause for worry after the failures in the last two matches of the DLF Cup, in which West Indies were bowled out for 146 and 113 respectively. However, he was confident that the batsmen would play with more responsibility as the tournament progresses. He also stated that the team management would refrain from experimenting with the line-up and instead pick the best possible squad for all matches.
"The areas we were suffering from recently was our batting. I am very optimistic that the forms of the individuals are going to be sorted out, I know that they have the ability and I am sure they are looking forward to expressing themselves as time goes by. We need the best combination and in a tournament such as this there is no room for experimenting and we are going in with the best combination day in, day out to get the best result." —Agencies