sport t shirts: Interview with Brian Lara

Interview with Brian Lara

Brian Lara

In an exclusive interview with Angus Fraser, the legendary batsman Brian Lara reveals what inspired him as he dispatched the world's best bowlers to the boundary and what the future holds now he has left the crease for the final time

Living in Brian Lara's neighborhood would not have been much fun when he was a child. Parents in Cantaro, Santa Cruz and Trinidad would spend their early evenings fearing that a ball of some description would come flying through their front window, while the young boys who played cricket with Lara in the street could spend an entire week bowling at him.

When I met up with Brian Charles Lara at Lord's, I asked him what it was that made him want to bat for such lengthy periods of time. Surely, after four or five hours at the crease, he must occasionally get bored?

"My drive has always been to bat," said Lara, holder of the world record for the highest individual first-class score, 501, and Test score, 400 not out. "When I played in my backyard I would bat for a week sometimes. We would play between four and six o'clock every evening, before I got called in for tea and to do my homework, and if my mates did not get me out on one day I would carry on batting the next. That was the rule and sometimes I would bat for a week."

Brian Lara

Did his mates ever feel they were getting a raw deal? "No," he said, smiling. "It was only 10 hours. They were always optimistic. They always believed they would get me out.

"For me, an innings starts at naught and ends when you walk off the field, and that was the most enjoyable part of it. You should not hasten anything and I never felt the desire to do so. I just felt that I was putting together an innings and it was up to the captain when he brought it to an end or, unfortunately, when on many occasions I have been out."

There are those of us who still do not want to accept the fact that we will never again have the pleasure of watching Lara bat live. His retirement from international cricket at the 2007 World Cup was sudden and it surprised everyone. He is still good enough to play - nobody could deny that. He scored 216 against Pakistan in his penultimate Test, and how much could the West Indies team touring England do with a player of his class in their side?

For 17 years, millions of cricket fans traveled to grounds or turned on their television sets excited by the prospect of watching the game's most thrilling and best modern-day batsman play. But now it has gone, cruelly taken away from us and it feels like bereavement.

Brian Lara

I always thought it was only fast bowlers who left cricket a physical wreck but the hours - sorry, years - Lara has spent crouched over his bat and running between the wickets have taken their toll. He may be only 38 but I could almost hear his body creak as he sat down next to me on a leather sofa.

"I never thought I was special," he said. "I just put in the work and enjoyed the process of working hard at my game. My first double century was not at school or at first-class level. It was playing cricket for the West Indies against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

"I just think that through each step of the way you work hard and you enjoy that process, and the end result is sometimes something that is out of this world, and everyone is amazed by it," he added.

"Wes Hall described me early on in my career as a superstar under construction but the construction period continued throughout my career until the moment I retired.

"I enjoy batting and I used to get to a point in my innings - it wasn't 100 but about 50 or 60 - when I felt I had seen everything the opposition had to offer. It was then up to me to dictate what happened. And then, because I enjoy batting, I carried on for as long as I could.

"I always remember when scoring my first hundred at Sydney that Rohan Kanhai [Western Indian batting legend] came up to me and told me to fill my boots. He put it very simply. He told me to score heavily now because you never know when the low scores will come. I have built on that over the years.

"My mental strength and my ability just to want to bat and enjoy it helped me enormously. I never got bored and I never wanted to score just a hundred, or, when I got to 175, to score 200. It never felt that way to me. It was always an innings under construction until it came to an end.

Brian Lara

"I enjoyed the challenge of being the opposition's main target. It was tough at times, but it was a good challenge. Knowing that a lot of the focus of the opposition was on me spurred me on. It was the thing you got into sport for. Tiger Woods gets the attention of not just the media but also that of the other players too. Everyone is looking at where he is and it is nice to know that you have reached a level in the sport where people recognize where you are or see you as the prize wicket."

Had he ever surprised himself? "No, not really," he said. “When I walked out to bat I visualized the best possible innings. I visualized myself playing well, so when that came to fruition it did not come as a surprise. There have been a few occasions when I have doubted myself. Mentally, I tried to stay as strong as possible when this happened, but there were occasions when I walked out to bat and I was not in the best frame of mind due to off-the-field factors. I remember in Australia in 2000 it happened when I went through a rut and doubted my ability to do things. I only got one good score."

What Lara failed to say was that the one score was the small matter of 182 in Adelaide. Expecting it to be his 400, 375 or 277 in Sydney, I asked him what series and innings gave him the greatest pleasure? "The series against Australia in 1999," he replied without thinking. "We had just come back from an unhappy tour in South Africa and there was a lot of trouble with the West Indies Cricket Board. I had been put on probation as captain for a couple of games and we had lost a few of our experienced players. Everybody thought a strong Australian team was going to tear us apart.

"We drew the series 2-2 and had an opportunity to regain the Frank Worrell Trophy, but they came back strongly in the final Test. That to me will go down as the best series that I have ever played in. I know a lot of people talk about my 153 in Barbados being my best innings, but the 213 I scored in the previous Test in Jamaica was better. The pressure I was under there - we had been bowled out for 51 in the first Test in Trinidad - was great and to produce that particular innings was to me the greatest show of character that I have ever shown."

As a cricketer, Lara has stood out like a beacon in a disappointing West Indies side but a failure to drag their cricket out of the doldrums is the major regret of his career. Honors boards that record centuries and five-wicket hauls taken by Test cricketers at each venue have become the vogue and it is amazing to think that Sachin Tendulkar, Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan and Lara, four of the game's modern greats, do not adorn the walls of the visitors' dressing room at Lord's.

Brian Lara

"It is not a huge disappointment not to have scored a Test hundred at Lord's. From a very young age I wanted to play here and at your first Test match you get into the dressing room, see the boards and think that at some point in time it would be nice to get up there. I scored a hundred here for Warwickshire in 1994 and the fact that I have played at Lord's, and that I have played almost 500 matches for the West Indies leaves me with a great feeling."

And what does the future have in store for Brian Lara? "I have got a lot of opportunities, now that there is no cricket to play," he said. "I will sit down, look through the pile and see what is best for myself in terms of me as a person and what will maintain my image, which is something that I have carved out on the cricket field. I am sure I am capable of maintaining my, whatever it is, my integrity, my character, to enter any other field and make it successful.

"I am not going to rush into anything. I have a couple of businesses that I am already involved in but cricket is my life and it is very hard to get out of it. I am also paying particular attention to not just the fact that I can make a contribution towards cricket, through cricket administration or in the media. But also that I have touched the lives of a lot of people in the Caribbean, in Trinidad and Tobago, that are not necessarily lovers of the game and there is a lot to do beyond the boundary, in terms of trying to enhance the lives of people in Trinidad and Tobago."

A career in politics for Brian Charles Lara? If he chooses to, I pity his opponents.

Master blaster: The life and times of Brian Charles Lara

2 May 1969 Born in Cantaro, Trinidad & Tobago.

Major teams West Indies, Northern Transvaal, Trinidad & Tobago and Warwickshire.

1988 Made first-class debut for Trinidad & Tobago.

1990 Made West Indies debut, against Pakistan in Lahore. .

April 1994 Set Test record of 375 against England in Antigua.

June 1994 Made 501 for Warwickshire against Durham at Edgbaston.

Family His daughter Sydney, eight, is named after the SCG, where he scored his first Test century, 277, in 1993.

* TESTS

Played 131

Runs 11,953