The King and I

It would be hard to find someone more unfortunate than Brian Lara in world cricket. There was a point of time in the late 90's, when he used to be blamed for every single West Indian defeat. What could be more unfortunate than the fact that in addition to scoring most runs in tests, he also has played in most lost causes. He was also a victim of an unusually large number of poor decisions(for eg 3 times in 6 innings in Australia in 2005). And to add salt to wound, the run out at Kensington Oval on Saturday.

The first time I saw him play, he was stumped of the bowling of Narendra Hirwani in the WSC in Australia 1991-92. Looking back at his subsequent mastery of spin bowling of all forms it is hard to believe that he was stumped once upon a time. But at that point Sydney 1993 was still a year away. Half of my senior school life went in fighting on behalf of Lara in the eternal Lara vs Tendulkar fight. I have sat through all his great knocks against the Aussies. My favourite is of course the magical 153 at Kensington Oval, rated the second best knock in Tests. That Mcgrath had to resort to bowling wide of the stumps to prevent him from playing said it all. The fan that I then was, my email id had (still has) the Lara number (375) to it. (Though it should rightfully be 400 now). But then as I matured, I also began to recognise the other not so good side of Lara. Not good as in not good for West Indies cricket.Too big a super star in a team game, he was. I don't blame him for that though. Often he has been criticised for being mercurial. But that is a feature of all geniuses. Illayaraja has his classics, but then he also has his super lows. Try listening to some of his music for a few 1980 Pandiarajan movies. But then given the right situation and frame of mind, that man could make you float on cloud nine. Lara was like that. He was not a Steve Waugh to work on his batting or captaincy. He led by inspiration. But then the thing with trying to lead by deeds and inspiration is that one also has to be an extreme team man. On field Lara was always a team man. Off the field not always so. That returns us to the point of being a lone super star in an average team.

I am sad that Lara has retired. He has been one of my 6 favourite entertainers. But then there is always a time to retire. I am glad that he got out while he was still on top as a batsman. The square drive that could precisely split the point and the backward point was still in place. So were the cheeky sweep and the delicate laaaate cut as he showed in Chepauk. And the most glorious of them all, the dancing down the pitch to hoick the ball anywhere that he chose between widish long on and deep extra cover.

I was then (as I am still now) an ardent follower of Windies cricket. A thankless task it has been for the last 10 years. But then "ithu... kathal". And for the sake of Windies cricket I am looking forward to the post Lara era. There won't be any more super stars from the tiny islands. Just a bunch of talented individuals. Unlike most readers of CaribbeanCricket.com, I think Windies will do better (provided they also solve their Board and payment issues) from now. With the possible exception of Chris Gayle, Windies cricket has been over the last few years all about Lara. This has been inspite of Lara's own efforts to project others. In his last 100 ODI's atleast he has always batted down the order giving a chance for the younger guys to bat. With the exception of Gayle and Sarwan, others have not made good use of this opportunity. The media and critics were still focussing on Lara. Now with his retirement, hopefully the others would come out and perform. And with no numero uno amongst their midst, hopefully they will play better as a team just like the Kiwis.

Thank you Brian. You have entertained us all like no other. You have been a living example on how to maintain one's quality even when others around are losing theirs. You leave behind a rich memories. Thank you once again. But now as Holding points out, we will look to the future.