Poor batting did us in: Lara

St Peter's, Antigua, Mar 30 (UNI) West Indies skipper Brian Lara has lashed out at his batsmen, saying their poor showing for the second successive time was the main reason for the humiliating defeat against New Zealand.

''Well let me say, it was the poor batting that did us in,'' a visibly upset Lara told mediaperson after his team lost to New Zealand by seven wickets.

He squarely blamed his top order batsmen for his side's continuous failure and brutally frank in his criticism of them.

''The way we are batting we are putting the ropes around our neck. We have now to win every match if we want to reach semi-finals.

''We always talk about our top three or four batsmen getting us the score. We have tried to give them (the top order) the best position, but they have failed to deliver.

''Somebody like me has compromised and come down the order. There are certain guys who want to bat at certain position. Ramnaresh Sarwan wants to bat at number three, Marlon Samuels likes to have the opportunity to bat up the order. But it's not happening and we would have to look at things which would work for us,'' Lara said.

He also admitted that his counterpart won a ''good toss with the early movement and the pitch became very different and got easier for their batsman later on.'' Lara praised his bowlers for trying their best to defend a small total.

''At the start we wanted to post 250 plus and we enjoyed a decent start to move to 60-odd for one. But we lost a cluster of wickets, and then Dwayne Bravo and I fell around the same time after a partnership and that hurt us.

''It was a poor total but credit to our bowlers -- and Daren Powell in particular -- because they refused to give in and they kept throwing it down and causing them problems.

''We tried our best but it wasn't to be our day. But we're not out of this tournament yet, we just know that we can not afford another defeat.'' Asked why he went with one bowler short, the skipper shot back that the kind of total his team put on the board it would have been impossible for even 10 bowlers to defend.

''We lost seven wickets for 99 runs against Australia inside 30 overs and again here, we were four down for 81 by the 19th over.

''The boys know what is in front of them. In the two games (of Super Eight), we didn't play to our potential and guys have to be told that.'' He urged his team to get focused and play as a team in order to keep West Indies' hopes alive.

''If we are going to win the tournament, it's got to be the entire team. We are not just playing well as a team and it's not just the batting department.'' UNI