BRIAN LARA The Greatest Batsmen of this ERA

Brian Charles Lara, TC, OCC, AM (born 2 May 1969) is a former West Indian international cricket player. He is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest batsmen of his era and one of the finest ever to have graced the game. He topped the Test batting rankings on several occasions and holds several cricketing records, including the record for the highest individual score in first-class cricket, with 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham at Edgbaston in 1994, which is the only quintuple hundred in first-class cricket history.

Lara also holds the record for the highest individual score in a Test innings after scoring 400 not out against England at Antigua in 2004. He is the only batsman to have ever scored a hundred, a double century, a triple century, a quadruple century and a quintuple century in first class games over the course of a senior career.Lara also holds the test record of scoring the highest number of runs in a single over in a Test match, when he scored 28 runs off an over by Robin Peterson of South Africa in 2003.

Laras match-winning performance of 153 not out against Australia in Bridgetown, Barbados in 1999 has been rated by Wisden as the second best batting performance in the history of Test cricket, next only to the 270 runs scored by Sir Donald Bradman in The Ashes Test match of 1937. Muttiah Muralitharan, rated as the greatest Test match bowler ever by Wisden Cricketers Almanack,and the highest wicket-taker in both Test cricket and in One Day Internationals (ODIs), has hailed Lara as his toughest opponent among all batsmen in the world.Lara was awarded the Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World awards in 1994 and 1995and is also one of only three cricketers to receive the prestigious BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year, the other two being Sir Garfield Sobers and Shane Warne.

Brian Lara was appointed honorary member of the Order of Australia on 27 November 2009. On 14 September 2012 he was inducted to the ICCs Hall of Fame at the awards ceremony held in Colombo, Sri Lanka as a 2012-13 inductee along with Australian Glenn McGrath and former England women all-rounder Enid Bakewell.

Brian Lara is popularly nicknamed as "The Prince of Port of Spain" or simply "The Prince". He has the dubious distinction of playing in second highest number of test matches (63) in which his team was on losing side, just behind Shivnarine Chanderpaul (68).

Brian was the 10th of 11 children. His father Bunty and one of his older sisters Agnes Cyrus enrolled him in the local Harvard Coaching Clinic at the age of six for weekly coaching sessions on Sundays. As a result, Lara had a very early education in correct batting technique. Laras first school was St. Josephs Roman Catholic primary. He then went to San Juan secondary, which is located on Moreau Road, Lower Santa Cruz. A year later, at fourteen years old, he moved on to Fatima College where he started his development as a promising young player under cricket coach Mr. Harry Ramdass. Aged 14, he amassed 745 runs in the schoolboys league, with an average of 126.16 per innings, which earned him selection for the Trinidad national under-16 team. When he was 15 years old, he played in his first West Indian under-19 youth tournament and that same year, Lara represented West Indies in Under-19 cricket.

Lara moved in with his future fellow Trinidadian cricketer Michael Carew in Woodbrook, Port of Spain (a 20 minute drive from Santa Cruz). Michaels father Joey Carew worked with him on his cricketing and personal career development. Michael got Lara his first job at Angostura Ltd. in the marketing department. Lara played in Trinidad and Tobago junior soccer and table tennis sides but Lara believed that cricket was his path to success, saying that he wanted to emulate his idols Gordon Greenidge, Viv Richards and Roy Fredericks.

He is the only man to have reclaimed the Test record score, having scored 375 against England in 1994, a record that stood until Matthew Haydens 380 against Zimbabwe in 2003. His 400 not out also made him the second player after Donald Bradman to score two Test triple-centuries, and the second after Bill Ponsford to score two first-class quadruple-centuries. He has scored nine double centuries in Test cricket, second only to Bradmans twelve. In 1995 Lara in the Test match away series against England, scored 3 hundreds in Three consecutive Matches which earned him the Man of the Series award. The Test Series was eventually drawn 2–2. He also held the record for the highest total number of runs in a Test career, after overtaking Allan Border in an innings of 226 played at Adelaide Oval, Australia in November 2005. This would be later broken by Sachin Tendulkar of India on 17 October 2008 whilst playing against Australia at Mohali in the 2nd Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2008.

Lara captained the West Indies from 1998 to 1999, when West Indies suffered their first whitewash at the hands of South Africa. Following this they played Australia in a four-Test series which was drawn 2–2, with Lara scoring 546 runs including three centuries and one double hundred. In the second Test at Kingston he scored 213 while in the third Test he scored 153* in the second innings as West Indies chased down 311 with one wicket left. He won the Man of the Match award for both matches and was also named Man of the Series.

The Wisden 100 rates Laras 153 not out against Australia in Bridgetown in 1998–99 as the second best innings ever after Sir Donald Bradmans 270 against England in Melbourne in 1936–37.

In 2001 Lara was named the Man of the Carlton Series in Australia with an average of 46.50, the highest average by a West Indian in that series, scoring two half centuries and one century, 116 against Australia. That same year Lara amassed 688 runs in the three match away Test series against Sri Lanka making three centuries, and one fifty – including the double century and a century in the first and second innings of the 3rd Test Match at the Sinhalese Sports Ground, equating to 42% of the teams runs in that series. These extraordinary performances led Muttiah Muralitharan to state that Lara was the most dangerous batsman he had ever bowled to.

Lara was reappointed as captain against the touring Australians in 2003, and struck 110 in his first Test match back in charge, showing a return to stellar performance. Later that season, under his captaincy, West Indies won the two match Test series against Sri Lanka 1–0 with Lara making a double century in the First Test. In September 2004, West Indies won the ICC Champions Trophy in England under his captaincy.

Fig :  West Indian batsman Brian Lara kisses the ground after his record breaking 385 against England in Antigua on 12 April 2004

In March 2005, Lara declined selection for the West Indies team because of a dispute over his personal Cable & Wireless sponsorship deal, which clashed with the Cricket Boards main sponsor, Digicel. Six other players were involved in this dispute, including stars Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Dwayne Bravo. Lara said he declined selection in a stand of solidarity, when these players were dropped because of their sponsorship deals. The issue was resolved after the first Test of the series against the touring South African team.

Lara returned to the team for the second Test (and scored a huge first innings score of 196), but in the process lost his captaincy indefinitely to the newly appointed Shivnarine Chanderpaul. In the next Test, against the same opponents, he scored a 176 in the first innings. After a one day series against South Africa, he scored his first Test century against the visiting Pakistanis in the first Test at Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados which the West Indies eventually won.

Fig : Lara in Chittagong, Bangladesh as the "ambassador" for the BPL side Chittagong Kings, 2013.