Lara's Anti-Sarwan Actions
For many years now, Brian Lara has been allowed to have his own way in West Indies Cricket, and this state of affairs has arguably prevailed whether or not he was captain of the side.
Lara's green light to do as he pleases probably goes back to his early record-breaking days when he scored 375 against England and 501 for Warwickshire within two months of each other in 1994.
From the days of his youth cricket, Lara was being groomed for captaincy, but his excessive, selfish hunger for leadership and his tendency to create rifts in the team, both as player and leader, undermined his ability to turn the fortunes of a side that has been going backward since the exit of Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards.
The West Indies batting star has been known to undermine the leadership of several captains, going back to the days of Richie Richardson, Courtney Walsh, Jimmy Adams and Carl Hooper. Shivnarine Chanderpaul, whose demeanour is not as forthright as some of his predecessors, was likely to suffer the same fate, but he pre-empted that by stepping down from the captaincy before he was sacked.
It is not that any of these were really great West Indies captains. But part of the problem was that Lara never learned to follow whatever existing leadership there was in the team, both at the captaincy and senior management levels. Ridley Jacobs was just being honest and open when, after his exit from international cricket, he described Lara as essentially selfish and not a team man off the field.
The appointment of Lara for the third time was clear indication that the WICB had no clue as to what was the best way forward for the regional team in the days leading up to the World Cup and beyond. Before his third dispensation, Lara had captained the West Indies in two stints, both of which were at best miserable.
Lara's problems with authority have been well documented, not the least his brushes with former coaches Roger Harper and Gus Logie, which went unnoticed by the WICB. And current head coach Benneth King knows that to keep his job he has to be subject to Lara.
Lara's batting brilliance alone has earned him the reputation of being one of the greatest batsmen the game has ever seen. But that that brilliance has never been translated into good captaincy and leadership.
Lara's heroics with the bat have ultimately spoken louder than any criticism that has been leveled at him during his career. His sparkling double century against Pakistan has again weathered the storm following his dropping of vice-captain Ramnaresh Sarwan.
The issue at hand, though, is not whether Sarwan's omission was justified, but rather if those same criteria proclaimed by Lara himself would now be applied across the board. If so, it means Marlon Samuels, Carlton Baugh, Wavell Hinds and Dwayne Smith would no longer be called for the one-day team.
By now, Lara has made it clear that he is not in favour of Sarwan being the next captain of the West Indies team, having already called for Chris Gayle. And in the recent West Indies Champions Trophy victory over Australia, Lara praised Clive Lloyd when in fact the commentators had heaped commendations on Sarwan's captaincy while standing in for the skipper.
In all of Lara's explanations about the decision to exclude Sarwan, he never referred to Sarwan as vice-captain, but rather as "one of our main players." Lara's persistent non-consultation with Sarwan on the field has made it more evident that he doesn't think Sarwan is fit to be the next captain.
Lara was even bold enough to equate Sarwan's exclusion to that of Fidel Edwards.
"We needed our bowlers and we also made a change –– Fidel Edwards isn't playing and he is one of our main strike bowlers," he said. But with Edwards' mere 63 wickets in 25 tests at 44.30, Lara perhaps knows a different definition of "strike bowler."
Writing in Guyana's Stabroek News, Tony Cozier has attempted to justify Lara's decision to drop Sarwan.
"It marked an unmistakeable change in a policy that readily accommodated deceptively talented underachievers in the West Indies team in recent times," says Cozier. "Lara's message was loud, clear and long overdue. It would have registered large, not only with Sarwan, but with everyone vying for selection."
Kudos are in order for the West Indies vice-captain for responding the way he did. Admitting he was "surprised and disappointed," Sarwan has vowed to learn and grow from the experience. "I see this disappointment as only making me stronger.
"I have gotten over much worse than this in my life and my career and overcoming this obstacle is not going to be any different for me," Sarwan added.
Sarwan obviously knows that he has public sentiment on his side. But he should also know that for him to regain his place it would more than likely have to be at the discretion of Lara.