Farewell: Brian Lara flanked by pals Dwight Yorke (left) and Russell Latapy (right) at Lee Studios, Manchester, England in April 2006

It’s difficult. . . to recall a time when Brian Lara was not the man of the moment. Since April 1994, when he scored 375 runs in the fourth Test against England in Antigua, breaking Sir Garry Sobers’s 36-year-old record for the greatest number of runs scored in a single innings in Test cricket, he’s carried the future of West Indies cricket on his shoulders. (Less than two months later he scored 501 for Warwickshire, his English county team, the highest score in a single innings in the history of first-class cricket.)

The burden has only become heavier with time. Having entered the senior team just as West Indies cricket was beginning its long descent from the heights of greatness, he spent his early days witnessing the departure of the old guard. By the time Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose (the last remaining members of the West Indies’ legendary pace bowling attack) departed, Lara found himself the sole repository of the people’s hopes of victory. When the batting line-up collapsed, when the bowling was being flayed to all corners of the pitch, Lara was the man expected to come up with a swift century and save the day. >> more

That excerpt is from a piece I wrote at the end of 2004, a few months before Brian Lara wrested his world record back from Matthew Hayden. Lara’s certainly the man of the moment today, as he plays what he says is his last ever international cricket match, against England in Barbados.

Lara’s delighted and maddened and dazzled and puzzled and frustrated and entertained us greatly these past 17 years (he’s a West Indian man, and that’s what they do). We wish him all the best.

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