The Prince of Port-of-Spain

 

Brian Charles Lara was born on May 2, 1969, in Cantaro, Santa Cruz in Trinidad. He was also known as “The Prince of Port-of-Spain” or simply “The Prince”. He is acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest batsmen. Lara captained the West Indies from 1997 to 1999.



Professionally coached, Lara was still a teenager when he started playing first class cricket and, in only his second game, blasted a century against a Barbados attack. He made his test debut against Pakistan at Lahore in the 1990/91 series, but it was not until the West Indies tour to Australia in 1992/93 that Lara 'came of age.'




He scored a brilliant 277 in the Sydney test. Later, when England toured the West Indies in 1994, he set a world record by scoring 375 during a single test. He went on to post a new record for the highest individual first class score of 501. By 2001, Lara had amassed 7,423 runs at an average of 49.48 with 18 centuries to his name.





Achievements and World Records:

In 1994, he was awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Overseas Personality Award.

Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1995.

In 2001 tour of Sri Lanka he scored a century and a double century in the third Test.

In 1994 he became the first man to score seven centuries in eight first-class innings, the first being the historic record 375 against England.

He reclaimed the record of scoring 400 not out in 2004.

He was the fastest batsmen to 9,000, 10,000 and 11,000 Test runs, in terms of number of innings.

Lara holds the world record of scoring most runs (28) in a single over in Test cricket





article:

We all know that he is a genius. We all know that he is arguably the greatest ever batsman of our time. We all know that he has been the solitary hope of Caribbean cricket from last 10 to 12 years. But what we don’t know is his level of hunger for runs. He is one player who kept encoring centuries after centuries with utmost of ease, style and grace. Ricky Ponting scored 9 centuries in the span of last one year and got ICC Cricketer of the year award, and Mohammad Yousuf registered 6 centuries in the same time period, but can they emulate Lara ever? Can they keep up the good work with the same level of intensity and sheer brilliance for as much length in time as Lara is doing? It is doubtful. Batsmen tend to do these sorts of things on cricket pitches. Records meant to be broken, but if there is one player who has habit of doing it again, again and again then he has to be Brian Lara.



 ( Helmet Worn by Brain lara during his historic innings  of  501)



      1987 was a breakthrough year for Lara, when in the West Indies Youth Championships he scored 498 runs beating the record of 480 by Carl Hooper set the previous year.[2] He captained the Trinidad and Tobago team at this tournament whom eventually won the tournament due to a matchwinning 116 from Lara.

In January 1988, Lara made his first-class debut for Trinidad and Tobago in the Red Stripe Cup against Leeward Islands. In his second first-class match he made 92 against a Barbados attack containing Joel Garner and Malcolm Marshall, two “greats” of West Indies teams. Later in the same year, he captained the West Indies team in Australia for the Bicentennial Youth World Cup where the West Indies reached the semi-finals. Later that year, his innings of 182 as captain of the West Indies under 23 XI against the touring Indian team elevated his reputation even further.


His first selection for the full West Indies team followed in due course, but unfortunately coincided with the death of his father and Lara withdrew from the team. In 1989, he captained a West Indies B Team in Zimbabwe and scored 145.

In 1990, at the age of 20, Lara became Trinidad and Tobago’s youngest ever captain, leading them that season to victory in the one-day Geddes Grant Shield. It was also in 1990 that he made his belated Test debut for West Indies against Pakistan, scoring 44 and 5. He had made his ODI debut a month earlier against Pakistan, scoring 11. In the 1992 World Cup Lara did well averaging 47.57 with a highest score of 88 retired hurt.


In January 1993, Lara scored 277 versus Australia in Sydney, this was his maiden Test century in his fifth Test, this innings was the turning point of the series as West Indies won the final two Tests to win the series 2-1.