LARA ... has amassed 10,818 Test runs at an average of 54.01 including 30 Test centuries

His 10,818 Test runs, an average of 54.01 and his 30 Test centuries means that whatever happens from here, Brian Lara will be remembered as one of the great batsmen of all time.

But down the years as he has had to play an increasingly Headley-like role in a desperately weak West Indies team, the question has become more frequent: Is Lara the best of the great West Indies batsmen? Wherever cricket fans gather, the debate rages. Inevitably, there are comparisons with the likes of Garfield Sobers and Vivian Richards.

During the second Digicel Test between West Indies and Pakistan at Sabina Park, June 3-7, and even as Lara scored his 30th Test century, sports editor Garfield Myers explored the issue with a number of people in the know.

Here, Clive Lloyd, the legendary West Indies captain of the 1970s and early 80s and a great batsman in his own right, Colin Croft, a member of Lloyd's famous four-pronged pace attack, Reggie Scarlett, a former West Indies offspinner, Maurice Foster, a former West Indies batsman and Jamaica captain, Jackie Hendriks, a former West Indies wicketkeeper and Jamaica captain, who is the long-standing president of the Jamaica Cricket Association; and Tony Cozier, the dean of Caribbean cricket journalists, discuss Lara the batsman and his place in history.

This feature is being published against the backdrop of the absence of the 36 year-old Lara and other leading West Indies players from the current tour of Sri Lanka because of the bitter, ongoing sponsorship dispute.


Tony Cozier - Lara would be as good as anyone. I put Sobers on a pinnacle and Lara reminds me a lot of him. Certainly, he seems to be getting better with age based on what we have seen of him this season. He has played some magnificent innings against different sorts of bowling on different sorts of pitches. He hit 196 on a pitch in Trinidad which was not easy to make runs on against virtually an all-pace attack from South Africa. Then in Barbados another fantastic innings - 176. Then, changing gear and coming against the Pakistanis and scoring heavily against some quality spinners. You have to put him up with the very best. Comparisons are odious, but you have got to put him up with the very best.

He has shown great durability. Of course, it's easier for batsmen (to last) than bowlers. Bowlers use different muscles and there is more strain on their bodies ... Once they have good eyesight - and Lara's eyesight seems to be as good as it ever has been - batsmen can last.

And with Lara of course, the experience is there and the maturity required for building an innings. For instance his 400 in Antigua last year. You wouldn't say that was his best innings ... Conditions were good, but it took a lot of stamina.
When you make 400, that's a huge score. He had to bat a long time for it and yet he never seemed to tire. He has tremendous powers of concentration. Quite clearly, he has mental toughness and he has been blessed with a rare gift which allows him to bat as he does - hand/eye coordination.

I think he always had the required discipline in the middle ... Off the field of course is something completely different... Certainly in the middle he has always been disciplined. On occasions he has found conditions and a couple of bowlers who have given him trouble. Don Bradman had trouble with Alex Bedser .. Brian Lara has had trouble with Glenn McGrath over the years, but you are talking about great bowlers against great batsmen.

But I think he has always had the kind of discipline which you are looking for. If there is a weakness, it is against the sharply rising ball. We saw Devon Malcolm giving him some problems here at Sabina Park on a bouncy pitch. Allan Donald has probably given him some problems with the bouncing ball. I think that would probably be the most identifiable weakness. Also, as a left-hander as with most left-handers, he is at times vulnerable to the ball angled across him, but he is now covering that by coming right across his stumps more than he did early in his career.
Nobody is better than him. I couldn't say that he is better than Sobers or Sobers is better than him, or he is better than Richards or Richards better than him. When you have got that kind of class, I don't think anybody is really better.

Reggie Scarlett - I thought that I would never see a batsman better than Sir Garfield Sobers, but after watching Brian Lara over the last three years I have my doubts.

I think he is so mentally strong that he can apply himself in any situation and he has got the natural ability to go with it. He doesn't get fazed by situations and I think that when he has a goal it's the focus that he puts into achieving this goal that makes him so good. And he is a destructive batsman as well. Bowlers bowl below their capability when they are playing against him.

I think he is the best batsman we have ever had. Look what he does to spinners. He gets on top of them straight away.
They don't know where to bowl. I think he is the best one, and that's saying a lot because we have had some marvelous players in the West Indies. Lara plays like Viv Richards at his best, he destroys the opposition.
Viv was a magnificent player, but I think there is that little edge with Lara because he can go and on and on. I think sometimes Viv would get fed up ...

One of the most destructive innings I have ever seen in my life was Viv Richards in 1976 at Trent Bridge when he made 232 against England. I have never seen anybody dominate a cricket field like that and there are many other instances, some of them I wasn't fortunate enough to see. But I think all round, Lara has got to be the best... I have thought about this for a long time...

If I had to bowl to Lara I would pray a lot and hope that I catch him on a bad day. You know that he plays the ball square on the offside a lot. He scores most of his runs there, but you still can't stop him... Sometimes he leaves his legstump exposed, but how often does he get out bowled leg stump?

Clive Lloyd - Lara is one of the best the world has ever seen. He is consistent, he makes large scores, doesn't give away his wicket. Gary Sobers was special ... Lara is right up there with all of them...

Brian might be a better player of spin I suppose than Viv (Richards). He is very commanding when he gets going. So was Viv. But I think Brian might have a little edge where spin is concerned. With Gary (Sobers), the wicket could be bad and the next thing he makes it look a good pitch because of the way he played. He (Sobers) had good eyesight, good wrists, a genius really.

With Lara, you try to look to see what his faults are. He probably moves a little early, but he has such good eyesight, he sees the ball pretty early. He has got to make the mistakes. You have got to put him under pressure. But the good thing about Brian Lara, I've always said, is that he finds the gaps... That's his forte.


Maurice Foster - I believe that at the end of his career, Lara will be the holder of every single record by a West Indian batsman. I think he will have about 37 Test hundreds. I think that Brian's main strength is two-fold. I think he is the best player of spin that we have ever seen. He also has this uncanny knack of making big scores. He has an enormous appetite for big totals...

Where there might be a question mark for me regarding Lara in comparison to people like Garfield Sobers and Vivian Richards is against real quick bowling. I think that both Gary and Viv were better against quick bowling than Brian, but overall someone like Brian Lara is going to be very difficult to replace. With Sobers you never saw him looking as if he is out of touch, when he is on he is on. Viv to me was the only West Indian batsman who used to take the fight to the bowlers and used to bat in such a way that he instilled confidence into his partners and put West Indies in winning positions. Many of Richards' innings brought victory to the West Indies team.

Colin Croft - From when Lara started playing Test cricket, from '91 till now, I would say Lara is probably twice as good as any other batsman we have produced in that time. That includes Richie Richardson, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Chris Gayle etc. In my mind, if Brian Lara wakes up in the middle of the night and decides that he wants to make a hundred, he will do it. He has got that sort of ability. Lara's biggest problem, perhaps, is his head. If he wants to bat or not ... it's not about his ability. The guy is superbly gifted...

I have seen Sir Garfield Sobers, I saw him bat with Rohan Kanhai and I thought Sobers and Kanhai were almost exactly paired...

I played with Viv Richards and Viv was highly dominant, but it is very, very difficult to choose between Richards, Lara and Sobers... it's very tight.

If I had to bowl at Lara I would bowl straight at him. All batsmen who are excellent you bowl straight at them because the moment you give them room they make you very embarrassed, Greg Chappell as an opponent was like that. For the present West Indies bowlers, Sachin Tendulkar is like that, David Gower, a left-hander, was like that and Brian Lara is like that...

You want, as a bowler, to keep them cramped, keep them quiet. Make sure that they don't make too many runs because sometimes they will become impatient. A man like Geoff Boycott of course, had no impatience. He would bat forever. John Wright of New Zealand was the same thing. But when you come to somebody like a Brian Lara, he is what you might call an exuberant batsman. He is a crowd pleaser and sometimes he makes mistakes, not because his technique is bad, but because of shot selection. His greatest strength is perhaps his mental capacity. Brian Lara has the ability to concentrate for tremendously long periods.
Look at his record: 375, 400 against England, 277 against Australia, 200 against South Africa. long, long batting.
Some of those innings were made in losing causes ... So it's not only that he is making runs and batting for a long time but everything bad is happening at the other end. In such a situation it must be difficult to concentrate.

I would prefer not to have to choose between Sobers, Richards and Lara ... Sobers had great batsmen around him so did Viv....

Viv was a bully against bowlers. He muscled his way into runs. He frightened bowlers . bowlers were scared to bowl to him.

Jackie Hendriks - It's always difficult to compare players of different eras, but Lara is unquestionably one of the greatest West Indies players ever. I am not going to get into the rating of our great players like 1, 2, 3, 4. but Lara is certainly up there with the very best. Of course I can't speak of George Headley. But of the others - Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Everton Weekes, Sir Vivian Richards . he (Lara) is right up there.

And we shouldn't forget others like Gordon Greenidge and Lawrence Rowe . Lara is a magnificent player of slow bowling and he has dominated the greatest spinners of his era including Shane Warne and Muralitharan . As a captain I would always want to use fast bowlers against Lara. An all-pace attack, with the very greatest fast bowlers. An attack of say Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Colin Croft and Joel Garner or any similar combination of the great West Indies bowlers, is what I would like to have against Lara.

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