Ripples on the brain

A post that waited as a draft for quite sometime now. ..

If an Indian cricketer with some stature were to retire, what would his retirement speech consist of? Or specifically how would he want himself to be remembered as? The answer will definitely feature “playing for the country” somewhere. Read how Lara wants to be remembered as:

“I want to be remembered as a batsman who provided entertainment to the fans and in adversity tried my best to perform…”

The one innings that I remember of Lara was during a test match when West Indies toured Down Under. If my memory serves me right, that was the last test in the series and West Indies had performed abysmally in the earlier matches. When Lara walked in, McGrath was at his best, having already captured an early wicket or two. That’s when he did something, that I thought was very ingenious. To counter the outswing of McGrath, he moved his back foot outside the off-stump just before the bowler delivered the ball. By this he ensured that he didn’t have to play any ball that goes on his off-side. He played only the balls that came to his body. Balls directed at the middle and leg stump were at his legs and so he could despatch them to fence very easily. The commentators at that time, mentioned that this was a very defensive move and he could never score. Lara not only countered McGrath, but scored a century in that match.

I loved Lara for the beauty and elegance of his game. Ofcourse, he was highly inconsistent and probably arrogant with his board (especially in the company of Carl Hooper) and his players. But that didn’t matter to me as I didn’t have the burden of wanting West Indies to win. David Boon or someone, in his autobiography, mentioned that three best batsmen, at the time of his retirement, were Sachin Tendulkar, Steve Waugh and Brian Lara. But I think, he also said that Sachin stood out among the three as he could score at will irrespective of the nature of the bowling. I personally think that complement should go to Lara more than Sachin. Even in Test Cricket, Lara would suddenly hit consecutive boundaries even of excellent balls.

I haven’t seen a lot innings of Lara, but hope to catch up with some of them sometime.