My Favourite Cricketer: The Prince, Brian Lara

I’ve decided to borrow an idea from 'The Wisden Cricketer' for today’s entry.

It is impossible to pinpoint exactly why we gravitate towards certain players and not to others. Everybody who watches sport needs someone to support and get behind, and beyond parochial loyalties our reasons may have little logic behind them. My adoption of Brian Lara as a personal sporting icon was not an intellectually reasoned decision. I am not West Indian, nor do I even come from a traditional cricketing culture. It was however a choice made with all the assured certainty of a child and has remained unshaken to this day.

Put simply, Brian Charles Lara is the reason I fell in love with cricket. The first time I saw him bat, he was in the process of compiling his magnificent first test century at Sydney. Prior to that I had evinced little interest in the sport and only tuned into the match by chance. After seeing just one stroke, a brutal cover drive off the back foot, I was spellbound. As introductions to batsmanship go that 277 could hardly have been bettered. It certainly won one impressionable six year-old forever to the game in a way that a turgid Kallis knock or a pugnacious Ponting one never could. Geoff Boycott recently asserted that Ponting, though statistically superior, could never aspire to the class of Lara and Tendulkar. When I consider whether a Ponting innings could ever have had the effect on me a Lara one did 15 years ago, I see his point.

From that moment onward every innings would be followed, be it on television or radio, in the paper or more recently on the internet. Whilst others were more concerned with Premiership results I sat rapt in front of the television living every ball of Lara’s record breaking 375. Regular updates on the radio from Edgbaston kept me clued into the 501*. Though nothing more than a whippersnapper, I knew here was a once-in-a-lifetime genius whose exploits I was privileged to grow up witnessing.

As a batsman, Lara defied definition. In short, he had it all. Possessing the sublime touch worthy of the most elegant stroke-makers, Lara found gaps like nobody else. The effortless ease and regularity with which he missed the fielders made a mockery of opposing bowlers and captains alike. When Lara was on the go it simply didn’t matter where the fielding skipper stationed his men: the prince would avoid them.

A single over was enough for Lara to showcase the entire breadth of his extraordinary abilities with the willow. On his final tour to South Africa back in 2003 he added another record to an already comprehensive resume when he deposited Robin Peterson for 28 runs in one over. The power was there, evidenced in two enormous maximums and a venomous straight drive; so too was the finesse, the final ball delicately cut one-handed past point after a mock charge forced the bowler into changing his length. At a time late in the day when most would have been looking to protect their wicket, Lara decided as only he could to go on the rampage.

Such moments were typical. Lara, more than any of his contemporaries, was simply thrilling. Perhaps it has become old-hat to marvel at that dynamic back-lift, but to me it remains pure theatre and an exemplar of all that makes cricket worth watching. Once one saw that bat rise high into the air ready to lash the ball to the boundary, one could only conceivably be watching one man. Then followed the exaggerated shuffle, the jump back and across that became more and more exaggerated as the years went on and once again Lara would be where he belonged, in the spotlight at the centre of attention.

In a better team who knows what Lara may have achieved? Had he regularly come to the crease with the pressure off and a platform built at 150-2 rather than in the mire at 2 down for 15, he could have been un-stoppable. But then, perhaps he would have actually fared worse. Like the first great Caribbean cricketer George Headley, one gets the feeling his most recent successor thrived under the spotlight, thrived in the knowledge that his performance could be the difference between stunning success and abject failure. True there were in fact too few instances of the former, but whilst Lara was at the wicket one always felt there was a sniff of a chance, no matter how hopeless the situation seemed.

Indeed, Lara’s career was defined by a string of one-man shows. He virtually single-handedly orchestrated the greatest Test match series I have ever seen, the pulsating 2-2 stalemate against Steve Waugh’s mighty Australians in 1999. Everything about that rubber remains indelibly etched on my mind. How the sickening low of 51 all out in Trinidad led to dire predictions of the death of Caribbean cricket. How a publicly chastised and probationed Lara instigated a Lazarus like recovery from the grave in Kingston, where he and Jimmy Adams batted for one entire, glorious, sun-soaked day. How he brought the cricketing world to a standstill with his finest innings, the sensational unbeaten 153 that led to an almost unbelievable Kensington Oval triumph by one wicket. How yet another whirlwind ton in the final test wasn’t quite enough to regain Sir Frank.

Of course for Lara every breathtaking pinnacle was offset by troughs as desperate as the former were fantastic. The unsuccessful captaincy stints, the mauling in South Africa, the late nineties form slump…but let someone else document the lows. I am unashamedly blinkered in my view of the great man. He was, is and always shall be my favourite cricketer. Enough pundits, begrudgers, opponents and even team-mates have been more than willing to belittle his achievements and besmirch his legacy. He may not have been perfect, but didn’t deserve a fraction of the abuse meted out to him over the years. Lara it seems was one of the games great polarising figures: one either loves him or hates him. I unapologetically belong in the former camp.

They say it is best to go out at the height of your powers. Leave the stage when you are still the best and have people begging for more. Lara certainly did that. His last four years in test cricket were amongst the most prolific of his seventeen-year career, during which he amassed 16 Test match hundreds. The last of these was one of his best: a stunningly free-flowing quick-fire double century in the heat and dust of Multan. His very final innings however was almost fittingly anticlimactic, undone as so many times before by an unthinking team-mate. Nonetheless, his parting shot to the Barbados crowd was worthy of Russell Crowe’s Maximus in Gladiator: Have I entertained you? he bellowed. The response, like that of the baying Roman crowd in the Coliseum, was a most definitive yes.

For me cricket and Lara were intrinsically and inextricably linked growing up. I never knew the latter without the presence of the former. Like some genial uncle, the next great innings was never far away, ready to comfort and console. It may have hurt to see the Windies lose heavily time and again, but the merest glimpse of that Lara magic would keep me coming back for more. When he prematurely hung up his boots last year it was more than an end of an era. From my perspective it was the end of the game as I knew it and loved it.

Attempting to sum up someone of Lara’s magnitude with a pithy closing line or an apt conclusion is no easy task. Many years ago, however, Sambit Bal managed it better than I ever could: ‘For light and song, for bliss and glory and for lifting the soul, who else but Brian Lara?’

photo courtesy Ukexpat - reproduced under creative commons license

Kolpaks of the Caribbean

not this kind of kolpak...

The news that Kolpak players might be stopped from inundating the English domestic game in the near future is not just a boon for those who think that this particular foreign legion is stifling local talent. The home countries hit hardest by the migration of cricketers to the old country may just find that the steady erosion of their talent base will slowly begin to cease.

We all know that South Africans are kings of the Kolpak. Journeymen Aussie pros without an international future are also most welcome by struggling county setups looking to get ahead. A couple of New Zealanders such as Hamish Marshall have been happy to abandon their country too. Unexpectedly, however, it has recently been the West Indies who have suffered most from losses to the English game.

It’s hardly surprising when one thinks about it. Cricket in the Caribbean has all the factors ideal for fermenting the seeds of Kolpakitis. Trading agreement with the European Union: check. An inept cricket board with little to no regard for its players: check. Utter lack of financial security for anyone not currently playing in the national side: check. The only surprising thing is that it’s taken this long for the exodus to begin. Considering counties such as Leicestershire and Northamptonshire have shown a willingness to hoover up just about any halfway competent, willing and available international cricketer under Kolpak (non)regulations, this perhaps says more about the lack of depth of cricket in the islands than anything else. In the past few months however three prominent former West Indian cricketers have begun to ply their trade in England as Kolpak signings.

The situation is an odd one. Pedro Collins and Corey Collymore are busy bagging plenty of victims in the English domestic season whilst at the same time across the Atlantic Darren Powell and his 47 average continue to plug away with little success in the Test side. The aforementioned Collins is a huge loss. The only active bowler from the West Indies with over 100 Test wickets, Collins has been excellent in first class cricket both in the Caribbean and in England since overcoming health problems a couple of years ago. Bizarrely taken to South Africa in the winter only to be used solely as the water boy, Collins decided to cut his losses and signed on with Surrey for a stint as a non—overseas player. Given the treatment he has received at the hands of the WICB and selection panel, one can hardly blame him.

The West Indian attack fared reasonably well in the recently concluded test series against Australia, but one can’t help but think that at times it lacked a little variety. The consistently threatening pace and aggression of Edwards and Taylor was a huge fillip for the side as was Dwayne Bravo’s ability to make things happen, but a left-arm seamer would have fitted in very nicely into the overall jigsaw. Watching Phil Jacques and Simon Katich pile on the runs in their monstrous and decisive second-innings opening partnership in Barbados, one couldn’t help but wish Chris Gayle had the wherewithal to throw the ball to the man who destroyed the Aussie top-order with devastating swing the last time he faced them in 2005. As it was he was otherwise engaged, opening the bowling for Surrey in a twenty20 game at the Oval.

Ironically, opening the bowling for the opposition that day was his Barbadian team-mate Corey Collymore. Since joining Sussex as a Kolpak player Collymore has taken 14 wickets at an average of 24 whilst conceding a distinctly miserly 2.52 runs per over in the County Championship. Amazingly Collymore was only overtaken last week by Jerome Taylor as the highest-ranking Test match bowler from the West Indies in the official ratings, despite having not played international cricket in over a year. A model professional possessing good control and an ability to extract movement from almost any pitch, Collymore could no doubt provide an effective foil for the quicker men in the West Indies setup. Furthermore, his test bowling average of 32 is lower than any bowler currently in the starting eleven.

Wavell Hinds is another discarded West Indian to have gone down the Kolpak route, signing for Derbyshire last month. Considering the number of inadequate opening and middle order batsman tried, recycled and discarded by the West Indian selectors in the recent past, one wonders why Hinds, a cricketer who can do both jobs adequately, hasn’t pulled on the maroon cap in almost three years. A test average of 33 may not be spectacular, but it’s a damn sight better than Darren Ganga’s 25, Devon Smith’s 24 or Runako Morton’s 22. Five centuries, including a double, indicate an ability to negotiate international attacks not shown by the above-mentioned trio. Consistency has perhaps never been a forte, but if that particular attribute was a pre-requisite for making the national side the batting line-up would consist only of Chanderpaul and perhaps Sarwan. The surprise selection of Xavier Marshall for the second and third tests against Australia may have been a success, but such punts surely shouldn’t be the norm. Evidently Greenidge, Roberts and Butts think otherwise.

It will be interesting to see whether Kolpak deserters are welcomed back by their home boards if the situation does arise. Unfortunately given their track record of player management one imagines the West Indies Cricket Board are more likely to burn their bridges rather than mend them. If that does turn out to be the case, it’s too bad: considering the relative inexperience but definite promise exhibited by the current side, the presence of a few competent seasoned campaigners amongst the youngsters would be invaluable.

Bounce, Glorious Bounce

If the 3rd Test between Australia and the West Indies in Barbados can be characterised by one thing, then that one thing must be bounce. It certainly makes a nice change after the slow pace and low bounce the sides encountered in Antigua. It is no secret that pitches in the Caribbean have undergone something of a negative metamorphosis in recent times. One of my abiding memories of watching cricket from the West Indies growing up was the mirror-like polish of Sabina Park and the exciting cricket that would almost inevitably bring. Then came the debacle in 1998 when the curators got a bit carried away and the match had to be abandoned after the opening overs. Since then low and slow has gradually become the depressing norm.

Indeed pitches in the Caribbean have been getting progressively lower and slower to such an extent that back in 2003 the Australian captain Steve Waugh described them as “the slowest I’ve ever played on.” Michael Holding considered the Barbados pitch in the same series to be “the worst I’ve seen this century.” Things have hardly improved much since. Most recently the pitch produced for the final test match against India in Kingston two years ago drew the ire of then captain Brian Lara. Lara was disappointed that a home pitch played right into the hands of the Indian spinners. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that such pitches have an adverse effect on the quality of cricket being played, and indeed of cricketers being produced, in the region.

Far too many players are coming into international cricket woefully ill-equipped to handle good bowling on testing pitches simply because they have had little to no experience of either at domestic level. When conditions are difficult for batting in regional cricket it is usually for all the wrong reasons. Batsmen are forced to negotiate tracks with inconsistent bounce and no pace and the techniques used to overcome such problems tend to be found out at the highest level. Sulieman Benn yesterday looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights as he unconvincingly (and perhaps even fearfully) prodded at the bowling in his brief stay at the wicket. It was hard to believe that he had scored seven first-class half centuries and averages over 20 for Barbados.

The course of the current test thus far bears out that players simply aren’t used to playing on bouncy tracks anymore. Indeed, nearly everyone seems to be getting carried away. The West Indies coach John Dyson accurately summed up what seemed to be the thinking of both sides in approaching batting on this surface. “You want players to be aggressive, particularly on wickets that offer a bit of pace and bounce," he said after the close of the second day’s play. The evidence thus far would tend to indicate that such an approach is misguided. In the Australian first innings Phil Jacques, Michael Hussey and Simon Katich all fell to cross-bat shots off short-pitched balls they failed to control.

Jerome Taylor and Fidel Edwards, despite much good work, also occasionally got carried away with finally seeing some bounce. Three times they conceded five wides with bouncers rearing over the keeper’s head and flying to the boundary. One can hardly blame them as they have been starved of the opportunity to hit the keeper’s gloves up around head height throughout their careers. It is however of course incumbent upon them to quicly assess such a situation and bowl accordingly.

The West Indian batting line-up as a whole exhibited even less assurance in dealing with the extra bounce than their Australian counterparts. Most failed to adequately get behind and on top of the ball, and coupled with poor application led to an inadequate first innings total. Skipper Gayle’s brainless dismissal was a wasted wicket, while a delightful cameo from Sarwan was cut short by a combination of over enthusiasm and a failure to get on top of the bounce. Unsurprisingly Shivnarine Chanderpaul was a notable and significant exception in compiling a wholly untroubled 79 not out. His simplistic approach and uncomplicated technique proved more than up to the task of coping with the challenges posed by the Kensington track.

An incapacity to cope with good short pitched bowling has in fact been a running theme in the series despite the slower pace of the wickets in the opening two test matches. Indeed the number of players from both sides taking blows to the head and body has been remarkable. Chanderpaul’s sickening blow to the back of his head in Jamaica stands out, as does Brett Lee being felled by Fidel Edwards. Simon Katich was incapacitated after wearing one from Darren Powell in Antigua. The sequence was continued yesterday when Brett Lee cracked Xavier Marshall flush on the badge of his helmet with a snarling bouncer.

Unsurprisingly there are few real masters of playing the short-pitched ball anymore. Players from the past like Roy Fredericks spring to mind for their unflinching willingness to take on the bouncer and for possessing the hand-eye co-ordination to succeed. Freddo’s hooking of Dennis Lillie for six in the first world cup final only to tread on his stumps in the process endures in the memory as one of the game’s iconic moments. Ramnaresh Sarwan may not be renowned for his proficiency in this particular facet of batting, but his uppercut for six over point yesterday was a throwback. Such scenes have become all too rare in the era of the front-foot bully.

In an age where science and technology has rendered almost anything possible it seems odd that curators around the world, and in the Caribbean especially, are apparently unable to produce cricket wickets of the same quality they were thirty years ago. Has the ancient art of pitch preparation been irrevocably lost? Or are the featherbeds of international cricket the result of a concerted effort on the part of administrators to establish once and for all the dominance of bat over ball in the misguided belief that runs and runs alone are what the crowd comes to see? Agronomists will no doubt speak of soil densities, moisture levels and sand content but as a layman the question remains: if groundsmen could do it in the era of Holding and Garner then why not now? Even Perth has flattened out somewhat over the last few years. Stories of 19th century bowlers such as Charles Kortwright bowling bouncers going for six byes may be apocryphal, but there can be no doubt that fast bowlers tend to struggle far more in recent times to extract steepling bounce. There must be something wrong when bowlers clocking at 90 miles per hour barely get the ball carrying to the keeper.

Whatever might be said of the players’ ability or lack thereof in coping with the faster, bouncier Kensington track one thing is certain: it has made for exceptionally exciting and eminently watchable cricket. It has been an ideal pitch, offering assistance both to batsmen and bowlers. Flashing cuts, vicious bumpers, fast scoring and regular wickets have combined to propel the Test along at a furious rate of knots. One way or another we can confidently expect a result come Monday, or perhaps even earlier. This is cricket as it was meant to be played, a real contest between bat and ball. Please, save the slow, low turners for the subcontinent. Let the Caribbean be a haven for quick bowling and dynamic stroke-play.

A good walk spoiled...

When Andrew Symonds stood his ground after blatantly punching one down the leg side earlier today and was astonishingly reprieved by umpire Benson, the final Test Match between Australia and the West Indies saw what could well turn out to be its single most defining moment. At the time the big man was on a mere 14 and his side struggling at a shaky 133 for 5. After his let-off Symonds was at his belligerent best in guiding Australia to a much more competitive first day total of 226-7, contributing a vital fifty in the process.

This is of course not the first time Symonds has escaped his rightful fate this series. In the 2nd Test in Antigua he was also given not out after being strangled down the legside. There his vigorous head shaking was worthy of the stage and suggested a career in acting is a possibility once he quits cricket. ‘Roy’ is perhaps an extreme case: such is his brazenness one gets the feeling that even were his middle-stump uprooted he would still be sure to wait for the umpire’s finger. He is the walking definition of a ‘brass neck’. Even so, he is the extremity of a huge and long-standing iceberg.

Walking is naturally a controversial subject, and there seem to be two main schools of thought in approaching it. The first group claim that the umpires are there to do a job and if they prove not to be up to the task then it’s not the batsman’s fault. He is there to score runs and is beholden to his team to do everything in his power to do so. Walking is seen as a sign of mental weakness and even a dereliction of duty. Furthermore, one is bound to cop a few poor decisions over a career and so can’t be blamed for trying to even up the score. Unsurprisingly, most batsmen and Australians fall firmly within this camp.

The other view holds that the batsman still has an obligation to own up when he gets an edge, doff his hat to umpire and bowler and quietly trudge back to the pavilion. Bowlers of course tend to be the loudest voices in the choir preaching such moral rectitude. Perhaps it is all too easy to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude from the comfort of one’s own armchair when one’s livelihood isn’t at stake, but it does seem as if they have a point. Once a batsman knows he has edged a ball and makes out otherwise he is simply being dishonest. Attempting to trick the umpire quite simply is cheating and arguments to the contrary smack of obfuscation. If Tiger Woods nudged his ball out of a dodgy lie in the rough it wouldn’t be acceptable behaviour just so long as he got away with it. Were he caught one wouldn’t hear too many voices saying “unlucky but fair play for trying.” Such a situation is of course purely hypothetical because neither Tiger nor any professional golfer would dream of descending to such sharp practice in a bid to get ahead. Why then is it acceptable and indeed expected in a sport whose very name entered the language as a by-word for fair play?

Walkers in modern cricket have been few and far between. Adam Gilchrist has been showered with most of the plaudits for his consistent honesty (in front of the stumps at any rate), but Brian Lara, arguably the greatest batsman of his generation, was also quick to turn on his heel when his edge was found and the catch taken throughout his long career. For some reason the media was by and large less inclined to notice, but then again it’s easy to be overshadowed by something as odd as a Steve Waugh era Aussie walking. Such players are very much the exception to an overall rule in a hard-nosed professional sport populated by hard-nosed professional sports-men. Lamenting this face of the modern game, numerous former players look wistfully back to bygone era where gentlemanly behaviour and rigorous honesty were supposedly the hallmarks of cricket. But just how rose-tinted are their spectacles?

Lest we forget, walking controversies are by no means a new phenomenon. As far back as 1928 the great Don himself caused something of a furore when he refused to leave his crease after apparently snicking one into the slips. Wally Hammond, the English skipper, reportedly spat “A fine bloody way to start a series” when his vociferous appeals were brushed aside. Colin Croft recently commented to the effect that Ian Chappell was one of the few batsmen to regularly make the umpire’s task easier in the 1970s. Regular cricket followers will know to take anything big Colin says with a grain, even a sack-load of salt, but his anecdotes do serve to remind one that the game may not be all that different to what it was 30 years ago.

The issue today is however complicated in that every decision now is under far more scrutiny than ever before. Each time a batsman pulls a fast one innumerable replays, Snicko, Hotspot etc are all wheeled out to determine the extent of the player’s perfidy. The situation has become farcical because everyone can see what is going on barring the umpires on the field. The technology debate is one for another day, but suffice to say that the position at present serves only to make officials look foolish, fans apoplectic and ultimately cheapens the sport. Much like the aluminium bat and flares, walking isn’t about to make a comeback anytime soon. Twenty and thirty years ago non-walking and poor decisions had to be accepted as part of the game simply because nobody had any recourse to remedy such anomalies. But times have changed and now administrators have the means at their disposal to solve a burning issue. Why don’t they use it? From a West Indian perspective at the very least we might see less of this Symonds chap…