BRIAN Charles Lara is once again the double world record holder.
The debonair, suave batting maestro from the twin island republic of Trinidad and Tobago, on Monday recorded the first quadruple hundred in the history of Test cricket, a remarkable performance even by his lofty standards.
This extraordinary display by the charismatic Trinidadian, arguably the greatest batsman to have emerged from these parts, was a demonstration of tremendous character, guts, mental strength and of course supreme class, attributes sadly lacking from most of his other batsmen.
The embattled West Indies captain, at the helm of a team whose players lack pride and passion and total lack of professionalism, has been severely criticised by journalists, former players and cricket fans for what they describe as his unimaginative captaincy, poor discipline and lack of motivation.
Unable to unravel the carefully constructed plan of the English team, Lara’s West Indians succumbed ignominiously in the previous Test matches to the tremendous pressure exerted by Michael Vaughn’s team, recording miserly scores of 47 at Sabina Park in Jamaica and 94 at the Kensington Oval in Barbados, two of our favourite hunting grounds.
There have been calls for him to step down from the captaincy throughout the wider Caribbean, a call he has manfully resisted, vowing to end his second tenure as captain with the West Indies well on their way to recovering past glory.
This exceptional performance of Lara breaking the rare individual Test record for the second time in his brilliant and topsy-turvy career is incomparable.
Very early in his career Lara was identified as a rare talent and has certainly fulfilled the faith everyone had in him with a succession of superlative performances despite his many indiscretions with authority.
The individual world bowling record, held by Courtney Walsh of 519 wickets, will soon be broken by both Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan, therefore the amazing individual performance of Lara is most welcome to all cricket-loving West Indians.
Let’s hope that Lara’s performance inspires the other members of the team to strive for improved performances as we try to stop the decline in our cricket.