'Let's Avoid a Big Lara Party'

Commentator/columnist Fazeer Mohammed is on his knees begging cricket fans in Trinidad & Tobago to avoid the urge to use Brian Lara's latest world record as an excuse for a lavish Carnival-type party.

"[What] is the sense in all of the impending celebration without a meaningful commitment to giving the young people of Trinidad and Tobago a chance to aspire to the heights that the national hero has scaled?" Mohammed asked in a column published in today's Trinidad Express.

Mohammed noted that Lara was "feted from pillar to post" 11 years ago after the 375 record but nothing that cricket in Trinidad & Tobago is no better off today.

"The new president of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board have reported that the organisation is bankrupt. Fewer and fewer clubs remain in existence along the East-West Corridor, many of them populated by huffing and puffing forty-somethings who should have retired a long time ago except that many of the teenagers who should be taking their place are nowhere near the recreation ground, choosing instead to spend their days watching BET and their nights gallerying with the accoutrements of a shallow, superficial and ultimately destructive lifestyle," said Mohammed, who describes himself as a "career cynic."

"[I]nstead of rushing to shower him with more gifts and repeating the same old platitudes in the VIP lounge or the rumshop (de Prince is now de King!), maybe we should look at what can really be done, in his name, for the good of a game that has given him, and us, so much.

Y'all hear?

Meanwhile, the congratulations for Brian Lara are continuing to pour in from around the region.

CMC has distributed a report with congratulations from Caricom secretary general Edwin Carrington, who paid tribute to Lara's "dedication, determination, discipline and skill..."

"You have shown that you possess them in abundance as you have now scaled the heights in three different categories in your chosen field. Many will agree with the statement of the man whose record was broken, Allan Border, that 'there is no doubt that you are a genuine genius'," Carrington said.

Former England captain Michael Atherton, who once dropped Lara from a World XI squad, has now labelled the left-hander as "the most gifted player of the current generation of batsmen."

"[It] is enough to concentrate on the indisputable: that Lara is the most gifted player of this generation; that he is, by a distance, the most watchable and, because of [his] flaws, by far the most interesting," Atherton wrote in the London Sunday Telegraph.

"Ask yourself who you would rather watch: Lara or the flawless but rigid Jacques Kallis? I certainly cannot think of a modern-day batsman I would rather watch. Unpredictability is at the heart of great sport and no batsman, in mood or method, is more unpredictable than Lara."

He added: "The image of him with his backlift so high that it almost touches the back of his head recalls the unfettered batting of a golden age, when attacking instincts dominated and when wristiness and placement mattered more than the size of muscles and weight of bat."

The International Cricket Council's latest Test batting ratings sees Lara move five spots to number two in its LG ICC Test Player Rankings.

Lara's double hundred against Australia in Adelaide moved him past, amongst others, Australia captain Ricky Ponting (down one place to third) and Mathew Hayden (holding steady at sixth spot) and now only South Africa's Jacques Kallis, the ICC's Test Player of the Year, is ahead of him.

The issue of Australia's overly aggressive appealing is continuing to make headlines with South African match referee Mike Proctor describing the world champions as among the sport's most aggressive appealers.

"Every side has got their own style of play. Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, to a certain extent, are aggressive in their body language and aggressive in their appealing and that's the way they play," Proctor said, according to a CMC report.

files another story that zeroes in on the umpiring errors and notes that West Indies skipper Shivnarine Chanderpaul remains opposed to more use of technology for making decisions.

Unlike Chanderpaul, Cozier says that Michael Holding and Ian Healy, both now television commentators, favoured the use of television replays under an appeals system.

Holding suggested the batting team be given the right to appeal to the television replay umpires three times an innings against decisions given in the middle. Healy was comfortable with two.

It sounds a lot like Peter Roebuck's proposal is catching on.

Back in the Caribbean, two former Jamaica captains -- Robert Samuels and Maurice Foster -- are critical of the Jamaica team's decision to accept bad light when just four runs away from victory in their opening Carib Beer Series match against the Leewards.

"No other country would have taken that decision. You have to believe in your players and in what the guys are doing," said Samuels, who described the accepting of the umpires offer of bad light as a "coward move."

Foster agreed: "Having got that far and the momentum was with Jamaica, I certainly would not have come off for light. Certainly I was very surprised when they came off ... unless it was a serious injury where the batsman (Odean Brown) genuinely couldn't hold the bat, that is the only reason (to come off)."

In the Trinidad Express, Garth Wattley chats with T&T captain Daren Ganga ahead of the Friday's opening Carib Beer Cup match against the Leewards in Anguilla.

Ganga wants more action and less talk this year but bemoans the fact that bad weather has hampered the team's preparations. "We are about 80 per cent as a team, going into this tournament. The remaining 20 per cent will go down as lacking match practice because of the weather."

A statement from ICC Cricket World Cup 2007, republished on the WICB Web site, says regional businesses and entrepreneurs will have an opportunity to provide a wide-ranging variety of equipment and supplies for the World Cup 2007 tournament through a Central Procurement Programme (CPP).

The supplies, described as "temporary elements," include things like stadium seats, video replay boards, trailers, public address systems and security equipment.