How we will miss him
by GARFIELD MYERS
I remember the first time I heard about Brian Lara. It was the mid-80s. Then Jamaica Under-19 manager Len Chambers had just returned from the age-group tournament in the eastern Caribbean.
And as I am always inclined to do, I asked if he had seen anyone "special". Said Chambers: "You have a little boy from Trinidad name Lara, look out fi him".
In 1987, it was Jamaica's turn to host the Under-19 tournament. Very quickly the news got around that the little left-hander from Trinidad & Tobago was special. Most of those games were played at the leading grounds in Kingston: Sabina Park, Lucas, Kensington Park, Police Ground and Melbourne Oval.
It was a tournament that included considerable talent. Lara apart, T&T had the wrist-spinner Rajendra Dhanraj. Jamaica had Jimmy Adams, Nehemiah Perry and a youthful Robert Samuels; the Leeward Islands had Ridley Jacobs and Stuart Williams; Barbados had Roland Holder and Sherwin Campbell, and the Windward Islands, Junior Murray.
But the one all of us were talking about was Lara - with his extravagant back lift, intrepid foot work and a tendency to hold the otherwise brittle T&T batting together. Lara made the runs and Dhanraj got the wickets as T&T came out champions.
One of the more remarkable things I remember about that tournament was that even spectators at a game involving Jamaica would take a taxi, hitch a ride or jump on their bicycles to go see Lara bat at some other ground - once word came that he was at the crease.
Those who watch cricket knew they were seeing someone out of the ordinary.
Even then Lara treated spinners with disdain, though Perry showed that he could be troubled by off-spin.
Today, with the barrel so bare, Lara would have made his Test match debut long before his 22nd birthday. Back then, the West Indies selectors felt no necessity to push him. But there were many of us who felt they held him back too long.
As it turned out, Lara's maiden three-figure score, that epic 277 on a turning Sydney pitch in his fifth Test against an attack that included the equally youthful Shane Warne in January 1993 marked him internationally.
It was immediately recognised that here was one of the best players of right-arm wrist spin around. Within a few years he would be recognised as among the very best ever against that style of spin bowling; and the best in his time against any form of spin.
That knock in 1993 turned the series around. The Australians were leading 1-0 and fully expected to win the Sydney Test after scoring over 500 runs in their first innings.
Lara's wonder innings ensured the game ended in a draw and a resurgent West Indies won the next two Tests, including a heart-stopping one-run triumph in the fourth.
All of us will probably have our special Lara moment. For me, it came in the post-lunch session on the second day of the second Test against Australia at Sabina Park in 1999. West Indies had lost badly in the first Test in Port of Spain and following their disastrous 5-0 drubbing on tour of South Africa, Lara was put on probation as captain.
West Indies, replying to a modest 256 by Australia, lost four early wickets before Lara (213) and Adams (94) manufactured what turned out to be a match-winning stand of 244. It is surely one of the great partnerships of Test match history.
They batted all through that second day, with the only Windies casualty being nightwatchman Pedro Collins, who was forced to retire hurt early that morning.
Of course, Lara would follow up with that brilliant unbeaten 153 in Barbados that gave the West Indies a thrilling one-wicket win and a brief 2-1 lead in the series. The series was eventually drawn 2-2. Australia won the final Test in Antigua despite another Lara century.
To get back to my special Lara moment: Lara and Adams appeared to be gradually working themselves into a position where they could dictate terms, when the former was felled by a bouncer from Glenn McGrath.
It took a while for Lara to recover his composure and in the meantime speculation buzzed as to what McGrath, with his immaculate control and ferociously competitive nature, would deliver as his follow-up delivery. Would he bounce again, go for the yorker? Perhaps he would bowl the length ball angled across the left-handed Lara towards slip.
McGrath went for the length ball, angled across. Quick as a flash, Lara was back and across, covering his off stump. The bat came down in a flashing arc from that towering back lift and there was the satisfying "thunk" as the middle of the bat met ball. Sabina was jumping and roaring as the ball streaked to the cover boundary.
Most ordinary mortals would have been tentative, or perhaps flash wildly without the requisite movement of the feet. The edged catch to slip or 'keeper being the logical result of an uncontrolled shot, which is what the canny McGrath was hoping for.
Not Lara. No batsman ever had a greater sense of occasion. Lord, how we will miss him!
* This column first appeared in the Jamaica Observer newspaper.