Brian Lara: celebration and sadness
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
The Hindu, 11 December
BRIAN LARA has made a habit of beating world records. In 1994 he posted the then highest Test innings of 375, quickly following it with the highest ever first class score of 501 not out. Last year, he re-took the Test innings record with a score of 400 not out, and, last month, he overhauled Allan Border to become the top run-scorer in the 128-year history of Test cricket.
Only weeks before that, he had set yet another record – but one in which he’ll take no pride at all. Lara has experienced defeat in more Test matches than any other cricketer. Of his 121 Tests, West Indies have lost 58. His closest rival here is Alex Stewart, who played in 54 England losses. In contrast, Sachin Tendulkar has been on the losing side in 35 of his 123 Tests and Lara’s predecessor, Viv Richards, in only 19 of 121. Thirteen of Lara’s 31 hundreds and just under half his total runs have been scored in lost causes. Whether that endows them with greater value or not is hard to say, though there’s no doubt that it’s more demanding and exhausting to excel on a losing side than on a winning one.
In Lara’s time, West Indies cricket has plummeted from cynosure to eyesore of the global game. The 1992-93 series in Australia in which he made his mark with a legendary 277 proved to be the swan song of the era of West Indies dominance. It’s been a decade since they won a series away from home against anyone besides Zimbabwe or Bangladesh. Even in the Caribbean, they’ve been hammered by Australia, England, South Africa and New Zealand. Their recent shutout in Australia leaves them having lost 19 of their last 30 Tests.
In the circumstances, it’s not surprising that Lara’s achievement has been greeted with jubilation in the West Indies. As with Tendulkar in the first half of his career, individual success is greedily grasped as compensation for collective disappointment. West Indies cricket is currently making its biggest ever capital investment in preparation for the 2007 World Cup, but the cricket board in Lara’s own Trinidad and Tobago faces bankruptcy, club cricket across the islands seems to be suffering a slow death and there is little indication that the current crop of Test players can reverse the tide. For the West Indies public, the succession of defeats has been agonising. The cricket team is, after all, the premiere pan-West Indian institution, the main global bearer of West Indian identity.
There is no consensus about Lara’s own role or responsibility in the saga of decline. He may be adored in the Caribbean, but even there he seems to many an enigma. Lara has often found his efforts squandered by inept, reckless or spiritless teammates. On the other hand, his own impact on the team has not always been positive. In the course of Lara’s 13-year career, the West Indies have won 26.7 per cent with him and 37 per cent without him. As a captain he was tactically inventive, but rarely able to lift his colleagues. Only Brian Lara seemed to play better under Brian Lara’s captaincy – a reversal of the Tendulkar phenomenon.
Lara has probably endured more prolonged fallow periods than any other indisputably great Test batsman. I’ve watched him perform sluggishly and even, at times, with bored indifference. I’ve also seen him play with a shimmering fluency and multi-dimensional variety of stroke unmatched by any of his contemporaries.
Of all the great players of my cricket-watching lifetime, Lara’s personality remains the most inaccessible. When he arrived in England in 1994 on the back of his new Test record he seemed an unguarded, cheerful, generous figure. Within a year, the fresh-faced innocent had vanished forever, overwhelmed by fame, money and public expectations. Like Greta Garbo or Bob Dylan, he found that too many people wanted too many pieces of him. He complained that cricket was “ruining” his life. He became embroiled in petty spats with players and administrators. His manner was often curt. More disturbingly, his commitment seemed to waver. But repeatedly, just when he seems to be drifting down the game’s batting hierarchy, he re-asserts himself in spectacular fashion. Over the years, he’s learned to keep his counsel, to smile and accentuate the positive, at least within earshot of the media. But watching Lara bask in his recent triumph, and make all the right noises, I couldn’t help but feel that the real man has been stashed away somewhere deep within, somewhere safe, and that neither I nor the cricket-loving public really has any clear idea who this remarkable person is.
Except, of course, when he is at the crease making runs. Rowland Bowen, the crotchety cricket historian, once warned, “One must not judge a cricketer on his figures alone.” Lara’s statistical feats are awesome but they are not what draws the fans to see him. Bradman was dubbed a “run machine” but no one would apply that label to Lara, despite his appetite for double hundreds. He is often tentative at the beginning of an innings; like a great vocalist, he warms up slowly and needs time to work his way into the deeper registers of his talent. Once in full flow, however, there is no more ravishing stylist in the game. His high swift backlift and prancing leap into the shot are instantly recognisable. Driving square off the back foot or whipping the ball to the on-side, his wonderfully decisive strokes display the rhythmic unity of a dance step – made even more remarkable by the fact that they have to be choreographed in a split second. Like a football midfield general, he has a 360 awareness, a mastery of the geometry of the playing field that enables him to bisect fielders with uncanny precision and find scoring angles invisible both to other batsmen and opposing captains.
Lara’s artistry blends the spontaneous and the cultivated, flamboyance and discipline, inspiration and stamina. It is irresistibly seductive. Even fanatical opposition supporters sigh in disappointment when he’s out early. They know that a major innings by the walking puzzle we call Brian Lara is one of the glories of modern sport, a privilege to behold, whatever the outcome of the match.
