da betsul： Brian Lara has always been a realist in the face ofdefeat
da bet7： Barry Alleyne24-Dec-2001Brian Lara has always been a realist in the face ofdefeat. He doesn’t plan to change now.His teammates will be making a trip to Pakistan and theWindies have been decimated by injuries and low moraleagain; Lara’s fractured elbow being the most prominentsetback.According to Lara, it all adds up to facing the facts oflosing again.I don’t mean to be negative, and you never know what canhappen in sports, but for anyone to expect the West Indiesto travel to Pakistan and win the Test series would beridiculous, the former West Indies captain toldNationSPORTS on Saturday when the team returned from theirlatest losing series in Sri Lanka.Asking too muchPakistan are one of the best teams in the world, with fourworld-class batsmen and very good bowling.I can tell you now it’s going to be very tough to win, thedouble world record holder said.Lara said there would be points in any series where a teamplayed well, but to expect the regional side to travel toPakistan and simply roll over such lofty opposition on theirhome grounds would be asking too much from an vastlyinexperienced squad.What we have to do is take every match for what it is. Wehave to play every session for what it is, every day forwhat it gives us, but we still have to be realistic abouthow much to expect, the diminutive Trinidadian said.Strong mental outlookLara said the series loss to Sri Lanka could have negativeeffects.We knew we had a lot of inexperienced players, but thelosses could be looked at in different ways.We can be negative and bow our heads, or we could look atwhat we did well, and improve on those things.He said he hoped the Windies players would have a strongmental outlook on the game, and not start to believe theycould always play well at home, but were unable to win onthe road.If you look at India, for some time they could win outside,and they started to believe they couldn’t, so they didn’t. Ihope our players never develop that attitude, Lara said.If we become accustomed to losing overseas, we can neverprogress because we’ll play expecting to lose.We have to be thinking positive every time we leave theCaribbean, but we also have to understand it won’t happenovernight.
