Don’t disregard Brian Lara

Jun 26, 2011 Letters

Dear Editor,
During the two test series West Indies vs Pakistan, while listening to the Line and Length radio commentary I heard Mr. Sean Devers mention Gary Sobers, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan all taking some time before they acquired their first Test hundred.
What Mr. Devers should have probably indicated is that Gary Sobers entered the West Indies team as a slow left arm spinner, showed promise as a batsman in the lower order, and was then promoted.
This bit of information is important in a sense, because of the fact the Shiv Chanderpaul and Ronnie Sarwan debuted for the West Indies teams as specialist batsmen. Gary Sobers’s first test hundred was that magnificent 365 not out against Pakistan, breaking Sir Len Hutton’s record as the highest test score.
One of the commentators spoke of Alvin Kallicharan being an attractive batsman and a very good player of spin bowling. Mr. Devers then mentioned Andy Jackman as a fine player of spin bowling, with the ability to use his feet, and as a batsman, was easy on the eye.
He then added that some other past and present players namely Mark Waugh, Carl Hooper, David Gower, Sachin Tendulkar etc as also being easy on the eye. The other commentator then spoke of Lawrence Rowe and Frank Worrell as being in that same attractive bracket.
The commentator then mentioned B.C Lara as being an attractive player and Mr. Devers took off saying that Lara was not a better player than Vivian Richards that the Aussie fast bowler Glenn McGrath dominated Lara whereas Sir Viv Richards dominated every bowler he faced.
The other commentator in defense of Lara, told Mr. Devers that when Gary Sobers’s record was broken by the “Prince” that record had stood for 36 years and that during that time, lots of great batsmen had played test cricket yet the record remained intact.
This writer would like to remind Mr. Devers that Sir Viv Richards played test cricket for the West Indies team from 1974-1990, his entire international career within the 36 years of Sir Garfield Sobers’ record— he could not touch it.
When B.C Lara broke Matthew Hayden’s record with that monumental 400 not out, Mr. Devers was one of the dissenting voices calling our ‘CHAMPION’ selfish.
Peter Roebuck (Vivian Richards’s captain when he played for Somerset) while doing T.V commentary of the one-day series during the West Indies 1992-1993 tour of Australia, on seeing Lara dispatch a delivery with a classy flick off his hips said “ with due respect to Mark Waugh and Carl Hooper, Brian Lara is looking very good indeed.”
Perhaps I daresay Mr. Devers, Peter Roebuck also meant “easy on the eyes”.
Monty Somwat

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Don’t disregard Brian Lara

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