Nobody's scared of Australia anymore, says West Indian legend Brian Lara
Legendary batsman Brian Lara feels that the Australian team has lost its lustre and is no longer a powerful force they used to be a decade back. The “Aussies” lost the second match by an innings and 80 after they were bowled out for just 85 runs in the first innings and the second innings was no better having lost 8 wickets for just 32 runs and were bundled out for 161.
Australia has already lost the 3-match test series to South Africa at home, the third and penultimate match in Adelaide, which is a day-night affair will give them a chance to pull one back as a consolation.
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As per reports on Fox Sports, Lara said, “Nobody’s scared of them anymore, I think that’s understood.”
The cricket for Trinidad and Tobago feels that the ‘Proteas’ are playing very good cricket right now and can possibly beat any team in the world. “You can’t take anything away from the South Africans because they are playing very, very good cricket; they most likely would beat any cricket team in the world right now. Australia’s got to pick up the pieces, head to Adelaide and see if they can salvage some pride,” he said.
Lara is rather surprised at the decline of the Australian cricket in recent times considering the fact they have excellent infrastructure at their disposal and also admitted that his native country West Indies does not possess the monetary benefit of enjoying such advanced techniques.
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The former International cricketer said, “I think it’s shocking for me because I thought the infrastructure here’s great and one of the problems in the West Indies is that there’s no infrastructure, there’s no money. I thought that the Australians had everything going.”
Lara added, “The Australians are struggling a bit at the cricket but I think most importantly that they don’t press the panic button.”
The Australians still have the opportunity to produce something special in the Adelaide Test and pave the way for a positive start to the Pakistan series scheduled to begin later this year.
Lara still holds the record for the highest individual test score in Tests and has extraordinary stats in both in both One-Day internationals and ODI format.