Ups and downs of a genius

Blessed with a God-given talent bequeathed to only the chosen few, Brian Lara became the finest batsman of his time, and one of the finest of all time.

He created individual scores higher than anyone has ever reached in either Test or first-class cricket and fashioned innings of such dazzling brilliance they brought applause from even the most cynical of wizened old players.

He earned fortune and fame, was accorded his nation's highest honour, and was elevated to the most exalted post available to any West Indian cricketer, the captaincy of the Test team.

Such is the stuff of which the wildest dreams are made but, for Lara, they were repeatedly transformed into the reality of dreadful nightmares.

Now 31, he should be at the height of the exceptional powers that were first manifested when he was a boy in short pants at Fatima College in Port-of-Spain, in his native Trinidad.

Instead, he has been overpowered by the enormous pressures to which every international celebrity is subjected. They have drained him of the enthusiasm and the yearning without which not even the greatest artists can perform. Now he cannot even bring himself to hold the bat that he had wielded with such devastating effect.

Lara had the world at his feet when, within six weeks of each other in 1994, he set the new standards of 375 in a Test against England in Antigua and 501 not out for English county, Warwickshire, against Durham. It was an incredible double and brought gifts and adulation from his grateful countrymen and fat contracts from eager sponsors.

A friend warned him at the time that his headaches had just begun. He soon came to realise what he meant. Within a year, it had all become too much.

On the West Indies tour of England in 1995, Lara complained to manager Wes Hall that 'cricket is ruining my life', announced his retirement and left the team. Only sympahetic persuasion from then president of the West Indies Board, Captain Peter Short, influenced him to return, but things would never be the same.

Time and again, the mercurial temperament of a genius has been since exposed with upsetting consequences.

He withdrew from the tour of Australia in 1995-96 two days before the team was scheduled to leave. When he returned from the subsequent World Cup in India and Pakistan, he was censured by the board for his biting criticism of the team management that was picked up by the tape recorder of a snooping reporter and for an open spat with team trainer Dennis Waight. In the Caribbean, he was fined, not for the first time, for turning up a day late prior to a Test against Sri Lanka.

Not only did he seem to be self-destructing. He was also causing chaos within West Indies cricket itself.

When the board overruled the selectors' recommendation that they replace Courtney Walsh with him as captain for the 1997 tour of Pakistan, the Trinidad and Tobago Board charged there was 'a calculated plot' against 'its captain, its national hero and its world-class performer' and that it was 'sowing the seeds of destruction'.

Jamaicans, on the other hand, accused Lara of deliberately undermining Walsh as all three Tests were lost in Pakistan.

For all his unpredictability, two things remained constant about Lara. He was a very special player and he had an understanding of the game that made him the obvious, if not only, choice for the captaincy, a post for which he had been prepared since he led the West Indies team to the first Youth World Cup in Australia.

Inevitably, if belatedly, Lara was installed in his predetermined role as captain against England in 1998, replacing the admirable Walsh, and proceeded to lead the West Indies to a double triumph, 3-1 in the Tests and 4-1 in the One-Day Internationals.

His boyhood dream, it appeared, had finally come true.

In less than a year, it had again turned sour. On the way to a tour of South Africa as eagerly anticipated as much for its social and political significance as for its cricket, the players chose London's Heathrow Airport as the venue for an unexpected strike to air their grievances against the board.

Lara, and his vice-captain Carl Hooper, were immediately dismissed, only to be reinstated after a settlement was reached. What followed was the shame of a 5-0 whitewash in the Tests and a 6-1 thrashing in the One-Day Internationals.

Lara returned home with his captaincy in jeopardy and his public status as low as it had ever been. Had there been a clear alternative, there is little doubt he would have been sacked.

As it was, he was retained, yet castigated, by the board for his 'weakness in leadership', told he had to make 'significant improvements in his leadership skills' and placed on probation as captain for two Tests.

What happened next beggared belief and revealed a strength of character in Lara not previously obvious.

When the West Indies were bowled out for their all-time low 51 to lose the first Test to the dominant Australians by 314 runs, there was justifiable reason to fear the absolute worse. Instead, the crisis seemed to light a fire in Lara's belly.

He had not scored a hundred for 13 Tests. Now he successively reeled off three of his most magnificent. His 213 in Jamaica and 153 not out in Barbados inspired remarkable victories.

If his even 100 in Antigua could not prevent Australia from levelling the series and retaining the Frank Worrell Trophy, at least he had almost single-handledly restored West Indian pride and self-esteem and his own reputation and credibility as leader.

Once more, the euphoria was short-lived. Exit from the first round of the World Cup followed immediately and a succession of limp performances in later short-game tournaments in Toronto and Sharjah presaged a new crisis in the life of Lara and of West Indies cricket.

It came in December and January on the tour of New Zealand where both Tests and all five One-Day Internationals were surrendered to unified, committed but hardly intimidating opponents.

It was the last straw.