SYD­NEY–Leg­endary Aus­tralia leg-spin­ner Shane Warne be­lieves an in­ter­ven­tion from Bri­an Lara is war­rant­ed in or­der to save West In­dies' trou­bled tour Down Un­der from be­com­ing a full blown cri­sis.

Speak­ing af­ter wit­ness­ing the Windies in­nings and 212-run de­feat in­side three days in the open­ing Test in Ho­bart, Warne said Lara could play a role in re­viv­ing team morale.

"Lara is in the coun­try. They need to get him in­volved, spend some time with the team in Mel­bourne," said Warne, who snared 708 wick­ets from 145 Tests.

Lara is the high­est run-get­ter for West In­dies in Tests with 11 953 runs in 131 match­es, and re­mains the world-record hold­er for the high­est scores in Tests and first class crick­et.He is cur­rent­ly in Aus­tralia af­ter fea­tur­ing in a Fes­ti­val of Crick­et Twen­ty20 match in West­ern Aus­tralia last week.

Warne, one of Lara's main neme­ses dur­ing his play­ing days, said it was im­por­tant West In­dies bounced back as world crick­et need­ed a strong Caribbean side."I think world crick­et needs the West In­dies to be strong. What they bring to the ta­ble is so ex­cit­ing," said Warne. "They play with emo­tion, pas­sion and flair. The Windies are pas­sion­ate peo­ple and they will be hurt­ing from that loss."

Lara is on record as sup­port­ing the de­ci­sion to ap­point Ja­son Hold­er as West In­dies cap­tain, point­ing out that the youth­ful Hold­er is a play­er for the fu­ture and was an in­vest­ment.He has al­so called on the WICB to get rid of some of the se­nior play­ers and start re­build­ing a Test team un­der Hold­er's lead­er­ship.

Lara, who was at the World Cup in Aus­tralia ear­li­er this year when Hold­er un­suc­cess­ful­ly led the team, has al­so in­di­cat­ed his in­ter­est in lead­ing the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) which has been un­der fire with­in re­cent weeks. West In­dies were ham­mered in Ho­bart, dis­missed twice for 223 and 148, in re­sponse to Aus­tralia's mas­sive first in­nings score of 583 for four de­clared.

They face Aus­tralia in the sec­ond Test in Mel­bourne start­ing Box­ing Day.