Lara, a cut above ...By Vaneisa Baksh

* Vanessa Baksh is a good writer.

* But when it comes to numerical analysis she is woefully lacking.

* In one sentence the Rev explained why Lara was head and shoulder above Tendulkar, Ponting, Kallis and Dravid.

* Lara is one of 3 batsmen in history to average 50+ with a 60+ strike rate----so in terms of dominance----Tendy, Ponting, Kallis and Dravid cannot shine Lara's shoes----so he must be #1.

Rev

rev  she is an ok writer she is not cardus

Vanessa is all prose ~ and silly folks lap up " mitigating " circumstances ..

It is a Trini thing and i bet her paper sells down there !

* Vanessa is actually not a bad writer---And one thing we know----she is not a pathological liar like Chin.

Rev

Please , spare us the diatribe , Vanessa !

That magazine should fire you !

Lara was a bit of a romantic hero. He had huge highs, huge lows, but always made you believe the impossible was possible.

To me, Lara also always looked depressed or disappointed. When Steve Waugh's Australia overthrew WI, Lara was essentially given a front-row seat to the slow and inexorable death of WI cricket. He tried to resurrect the legacy - he, like us, is a massive cricket fanboy, with his own idols - but it was all in vain.

Fittingly, Lara's career started and ended with famous run outs.  You had the run out on his 277 innings, the run out with Marlon Samuels in his final game, and you had the famous...

www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/65153.html

...World Cup run out where he looked like he was going to singlehandedly win the game, before Benjamin selfishly ran him out.

Lara always had the aura of a tragic hero. The loveable underdog. Stuff just didn't go his way. You always felt like he was fighting insurmountable odds and all kinds of rediculous drama.

I remember once Lara complained to the WICB. He said most of the players had no eduction and that it would be wise for the WICB to invest in schooling for some of their cricketers. Education, he said, would improve other aspects of their game. The WICB shot him down.

Lara had many similar behind-the-scenes arguments with management, and I think this made him very cloistered and closed off. He cared about WI cricket, but nobody else seemed to, or at least didn't seem to see things the way he did. His response was to shut himself off and try to get the job done all alone. Sometimes he did. More often than not, though, his great innings relied heavily on his teammates. The calming factor of Adams and Chanderpaul are responsible for 3 of his great knocks, Ambrose and Walsh for many more, and Sherwin Campbell for one. Heck, would Lara have made 400 without Ridley Jacobs, a cricketer who often bitterly criticized him?

Regardless, nobody other than Bradman compiled as many big scores as Lara, few looked as flamboyant and stylish as Lara, few made as many big scores against tough bowling attacks, few had to put up with as much stress and rediculous crap and nobody in the modern era has more great test innings than him. Where he failed was in India, and vs the Donald/Pollock era of SA bowling. He underperformed in NZ too, though personally I think he underperformed everywhere. With Lara, you sense that alot of his talent went unrealized.


"The reason Brian Lara stands head and shoulder above Tendulkar, Ponting, Kallis and Dravid is because he was more dominant than all of them."

This is true. He loved to target weak bowlers and strategically unleash the violence. Another great thing about him was that he'd counter attack bowlers who were DOMINATING HIM. When a Warne or McGrath put the squeeze on Lara, he'd try to put the pressure back on them. Sometimes it backfired, but the battle of minds was fascinating. Viv was the same way.

Some of Lara's aggression is also a result of losing team-mates on the other end. Many of his big scores find him getting out because he's pushing the accelerator due to a lack of partners.

i think trinidaddy made a glowing write up his his idol

Lara, Walsh, Ambrose and Chanders were my WI heroes of that particular generation.

The previous eras, of course, had many more WI heroes; Lloyd's team was all legends. You can proably argue that the best batsman in the world from the 1960s to 2007 was always a West Indian.

In this generation, I have no WI heroes (well Chanders is still hanging on). I find myself tuning in to Kohli, De Villiers and Amla, hoping to catch glimpses of greatness. I guess Gayle is a modern hero; I think I've seen all Gayle's IPL games. He's funny to watch in that format, if you like watching bad bowling get raped.

very good insights by Trinidaddy {TD}

underachievement over his career..unrealized potential. leaving much unharvested on the field...very good insight indeed. 

had Lara good teams around Tendy likely  wud have ended up chasing.  Lara wud have scored about 18 thousand runs.

a key abut Lara is where the others had to play defence he did not.  all the rest of then had to defend Mural for example. Lara did not have to.  He beat Murali everywhere, anywhere.  the only bowler who really made Lara pause was McGrath.

it is not that Lara had no defensive technique.  he did not need if most times.  once at Kensington in Bim west indies in trouble Lara had to defend..against england.  he did.  he defence was supreme...his bat like a Barn door.

but Lara did not defend much because he did not have to.  he destroyed bowlers mostly, regardless of what they bowled.  he made their good balls into bad ones and dispatched them....

and Lara used to find the gaps at will in any field.  I never saw such precision in finding gaps by any other batsman.  that was an incredible feature of Laras batting.  when yuh hear a man Like Murali speak of Lara you must pay attention.

Murali  was a great pelter.  he could do things with the ball and he had the pelting advantage.  yet it made no difference to Lara.

the way McGrath went about his business with Lara is to play mental games with him.  it is not that McGrath had any technical superiority as a pacer than Murali as a spinner. it is that he was always loud calling out Lara and like Muhammad Ali as Cassius Clay predicting when he would get Lara ..and went out and got him. 

McGrath and the Oz must have seen a  mental weakness in Lara and exploited it that way.

that's what the Oz have always done anyway..study out their opponents and set traps for them.  we should put nothing past them in this regard.  Lara represented a supreme challenge to them and they probably respected no limit in effort to get him out every time

I have never been a fan of this columnist because of the above ........ long winded nothing prose !!!