Newly appointed West Indies cricket captain Brian Lara having fun in the makeup room at Lee Studios, Manchester, during a recent commercial shoot for TSTT. The blurry reddish object is a cricket ball. The blurred hand is Russell Latapy’s.
Brian Lara's third captaincy is being marketed as a brave response to the call of duty, a noble sacrifice by a hero and a gentleman. But, watching yesterday's press conference at which the captaincy and the new team were announced, I kept thinking: Brian will be captain for a year, he'll bow out after next year's World Cup, and they're giving him a last chance to see if he can actually win some more matches. If he does, he'll be canonised as Saint Brian. If not, he'll be remembered not just as a great batsman but as a captain who didn't really cut it after three tries. An interesting gamble, both for Lara and for the West Indies Board.
Jeremy Taylor, at the Caribbean Beat weblog. And here’s the Trinidad Express report.