West Indian cricket batsman Chris Gayle pushes his luggage trolley on arrival in Lahore yesterday. The West Indian cricket team is on a 40-day tour of Pakistan, during which they will play three Tests and five one-day International matches against Pakistan. - Reuters

MUMBAI, India (CMC):

West Indies captain Brian Lara says his side needs to find a solution to their baffling batting collapses, such as the one which charac-terised their eight-wicket loss to Australia in the ICC Champions Trophy final on Sunday.

"We did not bat the way we wanted to. We had another collapse and we have to accept that. These sorts of situations we have to try to get rid of. It happened in the finals of the DLF Cup," Lara said.

Come up with remedy

"We scored two finals in the last month and we were unable to score 150 runs in both of them. We have to look at that situation and see how best we can come up with a remedy for it."

West Indies, batting first after winning the toss, crashed from a strong position of 80 for two in the 10th over, to 138 all out after 30.4 overs.

They lost their last eight wickets for 58 runs with only Chris Gayle (37), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (27) and Dwayne Bravo (21), reaching double figures.

"We did not give ourselves a chance in the field. One hundred and 37 runs is not enough. We did not bat smart. We got a very good start so we lost the game definitely with the bat in our hands. It looks like we have a bit of stage fright on the big occasion," Lara noted.

Praised openers

He was quick to praise openers Gayle and Chanderpaul who extended their series of fine partnerships, adding 49 in 5.1 overs.

"Chris and Shiv checked the conditions pretty early and realised that there were opportunities to score and they took advantage of it," Lara said.

"Credit must be given to (Nathan) Bracken who brought Australia back into the game by taking three wickets."