"I apologise, Vaibhav, but if you look at how West Indies handled Brian Lara… he was a generational talent, everyone knew," Brathwaite said on ESPNcricinfo's TimeOut show after Sooryavanshi's 37-ball 103 for Rajasthan Royals (RR) went in vain against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). "So what did West Indies do? They put him in the mix with Viv Richards and what not, but he didn't play [international cricket]. That was a different time with loads of tour games, and he cut his teeth with the senior players without having made his debut. And then we know how his career went once he debuted.

This explains why the caribbean is such a mess. our young people know nothing about even recent history. Brian lara was handled exceptionally poorly. In fact it was so bad, at one point, both Michael Holding and Garfield Sobers openly questioned why lara was not being picked in the final xi.

Whatever else transpires during the upcoming three-month sojourn in the Caribbean, one feature is more or less guaranteed, and it will not bring joy to the hearts of the English bowlers. The sublime skills of Trinidadian Brian Lara, already hailed as a batting genius at the tender age of 24, will undoubtedly adorn what promises to be an enthralling series.

The arrival of the prodigal son may have been tardy, but the 5 ft 5 ins left-hander is now firmly established on the world stage, an icon to all those who purr at the aesthetics of batsmanship. The West Indies selectors, wavering despite an increasingly fragile middle order, delayed his consolidation at Test level for what seemed an interminable age to most Caribbean cognoscenti.

In the 1991 domestic season, for instance, he amassed 627 runs in five matches, including six consecutive fifties, a tournament record which Desmond Haynes actually surpassed only a week later. During the Jamaica match, on an unpredictable surface at Sabina Park, he made 122 and 87, eliciting a cogent remark from radio commentator Michael Holding: "I'd pick Lara first for the Test team, then look for 10 others."

BC Pires, had this to say about Viv's treatment of Brian Lara

On the night of April 18 1994, the day of the 375, Brian Lara presented a West Indies Players' Association award to his former captain Vivian Richards. It was one of the most delicious of the myriad slices of irony that West Indies cricket regularly serves up: everyone watching knew that Richards, as captain, had done everything he could to keep Lara out of the crease when he could no longer keep him out of the side. Even Lara, at his most magnanimous, could not sidestep a truth every observer felt as keenly as his new world record.

">RTN has disappointed me many times but this has to take the biscuit. and to say it with a straight face is even more bemusing. The IPL audience doesen't know much about cricket outside their borders, harsha bhogle, tendulkar, dravid and ravi shastri excluded, but anybody who grew up in the 90s would know how much utter hogwash this is

@Jumpstart

For once I agree with you.

😂😂😂

On a serious note.

Although Lara was in the various squads,

he was kept out of the final 11 by Sir Viv.

Rumors at the time was that Viv stated that he did

want a rival for him as best batsman.

Imagine Keith Arthurton playing ahead of Lara.

Lara was mistreated by Viv and co.

@TanteMerle

lol Tellin yuh. I have a video made by Channel 9( Packer’s television station) which showed the entires series highlights of the 1991 series between WI and Australia. Wes Hall, who was manager of the team, said that the WI middle order had been weak for the last five or six years, which would take us back to 1985 or 1986…..which is when Clive, Larry Gomes and co retired. The bowling replenished. The batting never did between their retirements and 1991. In fact the same players making hundreds in 1986: greenidge, Haynes, Richardson were the same people making hundreds in 1991(Viv’s last century was in 1989) and WI would have lost that series if it weren’t for big hundreds by Richardson in the Guyana test and Greenidge’s last hundred(226) in the fourth test. RTN talking utter nonsense here.

Kieth athurton aka Mr binary

goes back to a massive issue with our young people. They don’t even know recent history but are always willing to offer their opinion on historical matters to look intelligent. And they end up looking foolish to people who know and worse, end up spreading misinformation to those who don’t and not going to check. That’s why among some West Indians, the idea that Africans migrated here has taken root which again is total and utter BS