Mumbai: West Indian cricketing legend Brian Lara warned that Australian players have lost their ‘fear factor’ and Australia’s fate is consequently going to dwindle down just like West Indies.
Brian Lara, himself being a genius of the game, started his career for currently struggling West Indies when his team was on their ace game in the 80s, says he sees remarkable similarities of downfall in the trajectory of Steve Smith led Australia.
Lara’s stern comment came after Australia’s fifth consecutive defeat in Test in an embarrassing innings defeat against South Africa on Tuesday.
“The fear factor is no longer there and a similar thing happened to the West Indies 25 years ago,” Lara told News Corp newspapers.
“When Australia beat us at home in 1995, no one feared us anymore and that’s going to be the situation with Australia.”
“Especially if they are not travelling well.”
The once king of the game West Indies is now reduced to a mere shadow of the team that won a then-record 11 straight Tests in the 1980s. Now they are just reduced to 8th rank in ICC test rankings above only of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.
Lara also believed that Australia has headed to a “downward spiral” after the 3-0 loss in the Test series loss against Sri Lanka in July and August giving away their vulnerabilities to their opponents.
However, he backed Australia’s ace Steve Smith and warned the selectors against making mass changes for the next week’s day-night third Test match at Adelaide as it would only affect the morale of players who are already going through a rough patch.
“The morale of the team was pretty low when we started to lose,” said Lara, who is visiting Sydney.
“Everything must stay as harmonious as possible… You can dig a bigger hole for yourself if you are not unified and you start worrying about other things that may not even be happening.”
“It could become a downward spiral.”