West Indies captain Brian Lara.

NEW DELHI, India (CMC):

West Indies captain Brian Lara is talking tough ahead of qualifying matches for the 2006 Champions Trophy.

Hours after arriving for the tournament, starting with qualifying matches this coming weekend, Lara said it is "unfortunate" that as the defending champions they are forced to play qualifying matches, but he expressed confidence that they will get past that preliminary hurdle.

West Indies tackle Zimbabwe in their opening game on October 8 and also face Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, with the top two in the series advancing to the main Champions Trophy tournament.

"If we can't get past the likes of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh to get into the second stage of the tournament (then) we're really suffering," Lara said yesterday morning during a media conference at the team's hotel.

Defend trophy

"I expect us to get to the finals and get to defend our trophy," he added.

In spite of reaching the DLF Cup final against Australia late last month in Malaysia, the West Indies middle-order batting appeared frail during the tournament but Lara is not overly worried.

He believes the players have the ability to lift their standards in the coming weeks and rise to the Champions Trophy challenge.

"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," he said.

Batting failures in the last two matches of the DLF Cup resulted in losses as West Indies were bowled out for 146 and 113, respectively.