Brian Charles Lara is a Trinidadian former international cricketer, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest batsmen of all time.
Lara topped the Test batting rankings on several occasions and holds several cricketing records, including the record for the highest individual score in first-class cricket, with 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham at Edgbaston in 1994, which is the only quintuple hundred in first-class cricket history.
Lara also holds the record for the highest individual score in a Test innings after scoring 400 not out against England at Antigua in 2004. Brian Lara also shares the test record of scoring the highest number of runs in a single over in a Test match, when he scored 28 runs off an over by Robin Peterson of South Africa in 2003.
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Lara’s match-winning performance of 153 not out against Australia in Bridgetown, Barbados in 1999 which has been rated by Wisden as the second best batting performance in the history of Test cricket, next only to the 270 runs scored by Sir Donald Bradman in The Ashes Test match of 1937.
Muttiah Muralitharan, rated as the greatest Test match bowler ever by Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, and the highest wicket-taker in both Test cricket and in One Day Internationals, has hailed Lara as his toughest opponent among all batsmen in the world.
Lara was awarded the Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World awards in 1994 and 1995 and is also one of only three cricketers to receive the prestigious BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year, the other two being Sir Garfield Sobers and Shane Warne.
Brian Lara was appointed honorary member of the Order of Australia on 27 November 2009. On 14 September 2012 he was inducted to the ICC Hall of Fame at the awards ceremony held in Colombo, Sri Lanka as a 2012–13 season inductee along with Australians Glenn McGrath and former England women all-rounder Enid Bakewell. In 2013, Lara received Honorary Life Membership of the MCC becoming the 31st West Indian to receive the honor.
Brian Lara is popularly nicknamed as “The Prince of Port of Spain” or simply “The Prince”. He has the dubious distinction of playing in the second highest number of test matches (63) in which his team was on the losing side, just behind Shivnarine Chanderpaul (68) respectively.
In 2009, Lara was made an honorary Member of the Order of Australia for services to West Indian and Australian cricket.
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Brian Lara was appointed honorary member of the Order of Australia on 27 November 2009. On 14 September 2012 he was inducted to the ICC’s Hall of Fame at the awards ceremony held in Colombo, Sri Lanka as a 2012–13 season inductee along with Australians Glenn McGrath and former England women all-rounder Enid Bakewell. In 2013, Lara received Honorary Life Membership of the MCC becoming the 31st West Indian to receive the honor.
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Brian Lara is popularly nicknamed as “The Prince of Port of Spain” or simply “The Prince”. He has the dubious distinction of playing in the second-highest number of test matches (63) in which his team was on the losing side, just behind Shivnarine Chanderpaul (68) respectively.
In 2009, Lara was made an honorary Member of the Order of Australia for services to West Indian and Australian cricket.
Brian Charles Lara early life:
Brian Charles lara, born on 2nd May 1969 is the eldest of eleven children. At the age of six, his father Bunty and one of his elder sisters, Agnes Cyrus, enrolled him in the local Harvard Coaching Clinic for weekly Sunday coaching sessions. As a result, Lara received a thorough education in proper hitting techniques at a young age. St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic elementary school was Lara’s first school. After that, he proceeded to San Juan Secondary School on Moreau Road in Lower Santa Cruz.
Brian Lara Family:
Lara has dated former Durham County Cricket Club receptionist and British lingerie model Lynnsey Ward. During the West Indies tour to Australia in late 2000, Lara was accompanied by Ward. Lara also dated Miss Scotland Jamey Bowers.
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Lara is the father of two girls one called Sydney (born 1996) whom he fathered with Trinidadian journalist and model Leasel Rovedas. Sydney was named as a tribute to one of Lara’s favourite grounds, the Sydney Cricket Ground, where Lara scored his first Test century- the highly acclaimed 277 in the 1992–93 season. His second daughter Tyla was also with Leasel Rovedas and she was born in 2010.
Lara’s father died in 1989 of a heart attack and his mother died in 2002 of cancer.
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Cricket Career:
Early Career:
He transferred to Fatima College a year later, at the age of fourteen, where he began his growth as a promising young player under cricket coach Harry Ramdass. He scored 745 runs in the schoolboys’ competition at the age of 14, averaging 126.16 runs per innings, earning him a spot on the Trinidad national under-16 squad. He played in his first West Indian under-19 youth competition when he was 15 years old, and he also represented West Indies in Under-19 cricket the same year.
Lara had a breakout year in 1987, when he hit 498 runs in the West Indies Youth Championships, shattering Carl Hooper’s previous year’s record of 480. He led Trinidad and Tobago to victory in the event, thanks to Lara’s match-winning 116.
Lara became Trinidad and Tobago’s youngest-ever captain in 1990, at the age of 20, and led the team to victory in the one-day Geddes Grant Shield that season. He also made his delayed Test debut for the West Indies against Pakistan in 1990, hitting 44 and 5. He had made his ODI debut against Pakistan a month before, scoring 11 runs.
West Indies and Test cricket Career:
Lara scored 277 against Australia in Sydney in January 1993. This, his first Test century in his fifth Test, proved to be the turning moment of the series, as West Indies went on to win the remaining two Tests and the series 2–1. After hitting 277 at the SCG, Lara named his daughter Sydney. Lara set the Guinness record for most balls in a game with 501 in 474 minutes with just 427 balls. He hit 308 boundaries, 10 sixes, and 62 fours in his innings.
From 1998 to 1999, Lara captained the West Indies cricket team, who suffered their first whitewash at the hands of South Africa. Following that, they were tied 2–2 in a four-Test series against Australia, with Lara making 546 runs, including three centuries and one double century. He hit 213 in the second Test in Kingston, and 153* in the third Test in the second innings as West Indies chased down 311 with one wicket remaining. He was selected Man of the Match in both matchups, as well as Man of the Series.
The West indies captain Lara represented west indies for 131 tests and scored a total of 11,953 runs.
Return Of Brian Lara Before Endgame:
After negotiations between Surrey and Lara for the 2010 Friends Provident t20 failed to come to anything, Lara declared that he still wanted to sign a contract to play Twenty20 cricket.
Late in the year he joined Southern Rocks, a Zimbabwean side, to compete in the 2010–11 Stanbic Bank 20 Series. On his debut for the Rocks, and his first-ever Twenty20 match, he scored a half-century, top-scoring for the Rocks with 65. He added 34 runs in his next two innings, but then left the competition, citing “commitments elsewhere”.
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After expressing his interest to play in the 2011 fourth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), and despite not having played active cricket for four years, Brian Lara still managed to attract the highest reserve price of $400,000 ahead of the IPL players’ auction in early January 2011 however, no franchise bought him.
In July 2014, he played for the MCC side in the Bicentenary Celebration match at Lord’s. On 18 November 2016, Brian Lara signed with Newcastle C&S D5’s side The Bennett Hotel Centurions.
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Brian Lara Retirement:
On 19 April 2007 Lara announced his retirement from all forms of international cricket, indicating that the West Indies vs England match on 21 April 2007 would be his last international appearance.He was run out after a bad mixup with Marlon Samuels for 18, as England went on to win the match by one wicket.
He announced before the 2007 Cricket World Cup that this would be his last appearance in One Day Internationals. After his last match, in the post-game presentation interview, he asked the fans, “Did I entertain?”, to which he received a resounding cheer from the crowd, after which he went out and took his ‘lap of honour’ where he met and shook hands with many of the fans.
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Lara stated this would be his last appearance in international cricket, he has also indicated his interest in retaining some involvement in the sport.
On 23 July 2007 Lara agreed to sign for the Indian Cricket League. He is the former captain of the Mumbai Champs. Lara volunteered to play for his home team Trinidad during the start of 2008 domestic season. He had not played for Trinidad for the last two years.
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He made his comeback a memorable one with a match-winning a hundred over Guyana, followed by a dismissive undefeated half-century in the second innings, scored at over two runs per ball. In the third-round game (Trinidad got a bye in the second round).
Lara suffered a fractured arm against the Leeward Islands in St Maarten on 19 January, which kept him out of the ICL season. He nevertheless affirmed his commitment to returning to Twenty20 cricket,and on 27 June 2010 appeared for the Marylebone Cricket Club match against a touring Pakistan team, scoring 37 from 32 balls.
In 2013, Lara became involved with the Bangladesh Premier League team Chittagong Kings as their ambassador.
On the occasion of the bicentennial anniversary of Lord’s ground he played for the team of MCC, under the leadership of Sachin Tendulkar against the Rest of World XI in a 50 over game.
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Coaching Career:
Brian Lara, one of the greatest cricketers of all time, has also had a successful coaching career. Lara began his coaching career with the West Indies team in 2010, serving as batting coach for a short period of time. However, he had a more significant role as a mentor and advisor to the team.
In 2016, Lara was appointed as the batting coach of the Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel, a team that competes in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL). Under his coaching, the team won the CPL championship in 2015 and 2017.
Lara also served as the mentor and advisor to the Kerala Kings team in the T10 League in 2017. The team won the championship, and Lara was credited with helping to develop the team’s batting strategy.
In addition to his coaching roles, Lara has also been involved in various cricket-related ventures. He was the captain of the All-Star team that played against the West Indies team in 2019, and he also served as a commentator for the 2019 World Cup.
Overall, Lara’s coaching career has been relatively brief but successful. His expertise as a batsman and his ability to analyze the game have been valuable assets to the teams he has worked with.
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