Cricket’s left-handed batters either fall into the larger stereotype of elegance or the smaller cliche suffused with grit. However, Brian Lara is much more than these languid poetry or dull prose definitions that shadowed his fellow practitioners.
Lara could bruise the strongest and wiliest of attacks, with dazzling shots, and equally he could drop anchor for long as evident in the gargantuan scores he totted up: 501 n.o. for Warwickshire against Durham in 1994, 400 n.o. (Test’s cricket’s highest individual yield) for the West Indies against England in 2004; and the 375 against England back in 1994. Sachin Tendulkar owns a mountain range of batting records but the staggering peaks belong to Lara.
The diminutive magician from Trinidad and Tobago tells a candid story with assistance from sports writer Phil Walker in Lara, The England Chronicles. The book offers an insight into his childhood, his ambitions of playing for the West Indies, his batting highs, the captaincy woes, those dark phases, the England duels, besides giving readers a microscopic look at cricket in the magical Caribbean islands.
Brian Lara leaves the field after declaring his innings on 400 not out, at the Recreation Ground in St. Johns, Antigua, on April 12, 2004. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
Honest memoir
What shines through is Lara’s self-awareness and he brings that same honesty in describing West Indian cricket. “I am someone who, if you don’t get me first, then I am in charge of everything,” he writes. At one point, he pens these scathing lines: “I was meant to keep the West Indies on top of the world and I couldn’t do it. We won a couple of things, I broke a couple of records, but I failed at my main purpose.”
This is a legend, who caught the tail-end of the glory days of Vivian Richards and company, and also served as a bridge to the subsequent generation headlined by Chris Gayle. Lara, silken runs and sensitive heart, and a recipient of some tough-love from Richards, also had some run-ins with Richie Richardson and Curtly Ambrose.
Importantly, the genius has a wider gaze evident while he ruminates over what Carl Hooper and Ian Bishop could have achieved considering the talent they possessed. Lara sees all, and this tome reflects this wonderful quality.
Lara, The England Chronicles; Brian Lara, Fairfield Books/Simon & Schuster, ₹1,250.
vijayakumar.kc@thehindu.co.in
