Who's the Real Brian Lara (Part 2)
(Cricinfo Magazine)
Joey Carew, who played 19 Tests for West Indies in the Sobers era, was one of Brian Lara's early mentors. According to Carew, Lara was destined for greatness almost from the moment he first gripped a bat. "The first thing that I noticed about Brian was his natural cricketing brain and intelligence," he says. "He was born special to this game ? he had so much co-ordination, timing and understanding of batting that you knew, even at the age of 16 or 17, that he would be an outstanding batsman. Many have talent but he understood his game early, knew what he could do."
Lara attended college with Carew's two boys, and the memories of the days spent with the Carew household are still fresh in his mind. "We have a very close relationship and one of the key things I've enjoyed over the years is just listening to him talk about cricket," he says. "As a teenager I'd be at his house listening to the West Indies playing, and he'd talk. His understanding of the game was at such a high level that I learned a lot through him.
"My fondest moments will be of talking cricket and just being a part of his family and understanding life. Of course I still get the odd phone call saying you're moving across too much or your head is moving [smiles]."
Carew, who doesn't hesitate to label Lara the best player of spin that he's ever seen, singles out his ward's abiding passion for the game. "He played a lot of little games when he was young ? Chinese cricket and marbles cricket with little stones ? and set his own fields. It gave him a grounding that he needed, it helped him understand angles. He used to place fielders where he liked to hit the ball so that he could work around them and find the gaps. He wasn't keen on repeating what he was good at, but always looked to improve on what he was not."
The instinctive nature of his shot-making was what first caught the eye, and a glorious 277 at Sydney made him a star long before the world records started to tumble. But as the years passed, West Indies' stock declined, prompting some to wonder whether Lara's free spirit would be shackled by the chains of failure. He rubbishes the idea.
"I still express myself," he says animatedly. "I'm someone who's learned to thrive under stressful situations. Of course I wish it was different. But I'?ve learned over the years to appreciate stressful, under-pressure situations and I go out and express myself. I don't limit my play. People accuse me of being flamboyant, which is partly true. I still feel that over the years I've played the way that I wanted to play. My game hasn't been restricted by the environment."
Indeed, his finest hour came in a crisis. The magnificent unbeaten 153 at the Kensington Oval in 1999 ? inspired partly by reading Michael Jordan's account of his visualisation techniques the night before ? stands alongside VVS Laxman's 281 in the modern pantheon. "The pressure sometimes gets the better of me but it's a lovely feeling to have the chips down, back against the wall, and come up with something special."
Unlike Sachin Tendulkar, whom he admires greatly, Lara's genius has been touched with frailty. At times, bereft of inspiration and form, he has resembled a lost soul. He puts that down to his impulsive nature. "I'm an emotional guy, a person whose senses are very close to him. I feel affected by situations, positively and negatively. To be perfect all the time, or out of this world all the time, is impossible. It's been a pleasurable ride actually, to go through the highs and the lows. I'm just happy to have played the game."
Perhaps he wouldn't have captivated so many of us if his game wasn't a high-stakes one. Many of cricket's heaviest run-scorers were literally run-machines, men who executed the basics near-perfectly day after day. Some kept the statisticians busy but seldom stirred the soul. Lara has been the polar opposite, with something of the great gambler in him. According to him that's been a strength rather than a flaw.
"Sometimes I do take risks," he says, immediately evoking images of the shuffle across the stumps and the precise glance to fine leg. "That's why you see scores in excess of 300. You go out there and get to a 100, and you feel free. You want to go on and dominate. "Look at the likes of [Virender] Sehwag. He's got a triple-century simply from the fact that he takes a lot of risks. It pays off in some situations and sometimes it doesn't.
"People are critical of those kinds of players because it seems that they're not showing the necessary discipline that a particular situation needs. But that's how the guy plays. And if he comes off playing that way, he should be allowed to. It's not cricket on the edge, it's my cricket, and how I like playing the game."
Many old-timers scoff at the training methods in vogue these days, but Lara, whose career took flight in the days when drills were far more rudimentary, is an enthusiastic convert. "Sport has gone to a different level. It's more hectic, a lot more games, and you need to be fitter. At 37 I feel the need to be training; I feel the need to have a good diet."
The way he prepares himself has also changed. As with Tendulkar of recent vintage, many of the hard yards are done in the mind. "A lot of my game is in the mental approach," he says. "I spend a lot of time in the nets, yes, but if I'm second-guessing myself, it doesn't make any sense. I make sure I get my head right before I enter the nets, because without that I won't get what I need out of the session."
As time winds down I pop the question that I've been itching to ask ever since he agreed to do the interview. Records, acclaim, fame and disappointment have been an integral part of his life, but who is Brian Lara? What does he see when he gazes into the mirror?
"A very simple person thrust into an overwhelming situation in terms of his cricket life," he says after some thought. "It shaped my life. You're going to read or hear things about Brian Lara, and some would be good, some great, and some bad. At the end of the day, you still have a human being.
"I've enjoyed my game, I've enjoyed bringing a smile to peoples' faces. Just to hear someone say that there was a joy in watching Brian Lara bat is enough for me. If it's thousands of people, even better. I'?ll carry on life with the same sort of outlook, and I expect similar challenges from life."
So where does the story, or at least its cricketing chapter, end? The boy touched by genius became a man who scaled Olympian heights while also experiencing crushing disappointments. What remains?
"I'd just like to see West Indies cricket on the up," he says. "Not necessarily a World Cup win or one or two Test series wins. Just seeing our cricket turn the corner and knowing that there?s going to be a natural progression back to the top.
"There's a lot of talk of turning corners and going back into slumps. I feel I've played enough cricket to know when we're going to make consistent progress back up the ladder of world cricket. I feel that the ingredients are there but I just think that the holistic formation of what we have to do to get there isn't presently in place, right from the administration and the grassroots to the 14 players that you see.
"Unless we get that package together it's going to be very difficult for me to close my eyes and say, '?You know what? In three or four years we?re going to be back at the top.' When that package comes together, give me a call and I'll be able to tell you."
Tens of thousands entranced by his batting, and many more with sepia-tinted memories of Caribbean cricket's halcyon years, will hope that wait isn't an interminable one.
* Republished with permission from Cricinfo Magazine.