The one constant oasis
by VANEISA BAKSH
Nothing could so have reinforced the impression of the entire institution of West Indies cricket being incapable of seeing the big picture.
Marlon Samuels choosing the occasion of Brian Lara's last international match to leave him so needlessly stranded was as mindless as Devon Smith's inability to allow Chris Gayle to take strike if he couldn't score.
It put me off so badly that I couldn't bear to watch Samuels bat afterwards. True, like Gayle he was playing the kind of shots we would have liked to see throughout the tournament. But like every other West Indian fan who felt that the last two games would see a real fight (I am writing this as the West Indies innings is in progress), it was all too predictable, and every brilliant shot was robbed of its valour by dint of being stroked after the battle had been lost.I still fume at the idea that anyone with even a modicum of understanding of what Brian Lara, as cricketer, has brought to world cricket, could contribute to denying us the chance to watch him play one more time.
It had been hard enough to accept the abruptness of his announcement that he was going to play his last international match on Saturday. Despite knowing that he would soon be leaving the game, I think most of us had been bracing for it and consoling ourselves that at least we would see him play one last Test series.
It was even more distressing because it was obvious that he had not been selected for the England tour, that he was another great player being cast aside because the West Indies Cricket Board was again in a crisis and their instinctive reaction is always to throw someone to the wolves.
In the big picture, Lara as either captain or player on the upcoming tour of England will not affect or improve the rot within West Indies cricket. The tour is too imminent for that, and any fool can deduce that much. But just as every fool can also discern his impact on West Indies cricket over the past two decades, what would it have taken to allow him and the cricket world a proper rendezvous with history?
This is the man celebrated in the Test world for all its important batting records. He has been the builder of the largest Test innings on a grander scale than any other batsman, save Bradman. It would have been the most fitting tribute to have him end his career in the Test arena.
We can argue about Lara's relations with the WICB and with his teammates; we can analyse his captaincy and if we are so minded, we can speculate about his personal lifestyle in barroom free-for-alls; but at the same time we have to acknowledge what a tremendous force Lara has been in world cricket.
We have to acknowledge that for all these arid years, Brian Lara has been the one constant oasis. We have to appreciate how much he has shouldered in that time. If, in the last two decades of watching West Indies cricket you have had moments of real joy, how often has Lara been at the centre?
Was it too much to understand the historical magnitude of the moment and allow the world to say a proper thank-you and farewell?