FORMER West Indies captain Brian Lara yesterday hailed current opener Adrian Barath, saying that his debut century against Australia in the just concluded First Test represented the birth of what he believes will be a very interesting career.
’You could see how compact, how solid (he plays) and you could tell that he is going to have a tremendous future. I congratulate him and his family and West Indies cricket for bringing somebody to the fore at this present time, when our cricket has been spiralling in the wrong direction,’ Lara stated.
The cricketing legend was speaking at an investiture ceremony, in which he was bestowed with the Order of Australia by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the Australian High Commission yesterday.
Lara had had lunch with the Queen, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and met India’s Prime Minister on Saturday.
Yesterday, it was the Australian PM’s turn.
Rudd said Lara was a hero to many Australians. He said Australia and the West Indies, apart from their common history as part of the British Empire, had a shared passionate love for a great game.
’We (in Australia) know names like Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd and of course, Lara,’ Rudd, who described Lara as ’one of the greatest of the greats in West Indies cricket’, said.
He said Lara, who has made an extraordinary career, continues to make a remarkable contribution to the game. He said it was Lara, who had spotted Barath, ’West Indies’ latest great’, when he was just 11 years old. Lara, he noted, has enjoyed working with the Australia High Commissioner in the Australian Sport Outreach Programme, a programme designed to ensure that Trinidad and Tobago youngsters get what is available to youngsters in Australia.
Addressing the gathering, Lara said, ’We can go to any island in the Caribbean and pick out a Gordon Greenidge or a Viv Richards, ... and we must continue to do that. But if there is a country that shows what it takes to take a youngster from one level to the next it is Australia. Their infrastructure for sports is tremendous. The Australians did copy our style of cricket when we were top in the world, so it is only fitting for us to do so today (and copy from them as well).’
Lara also spoke of his emotional ties with Australia.
’I scored my first Test century in Sydney. And I persuaded a young lady named Leasel Rovedas to name our first daughter Sydney. She fought a little bit but I think she understood the importance of that first century,’ Lara said, looking affectionately at the now 13-year-old Sydney, who stood to his left.
’Everybody wonders where the name the Prince of Port of Spain came from. Back in 1990, Australia versus the West Indies, I met Greg Mathews and Mike Whitney, two Australia players... and showed them the night life in Port of Spain. That’s where the Prince of Port of Spain came from,’ he explained, provoking chuckles and a friendly pat on the shoulder from PM Rudd.
Lara also said he sought to emulate two of his heroes - West Indies’ Roy Fredericks and Australia’s Alan Border. In the early part of his career, he sought to emulate the flamboyance of Fredericks and in the latter part of his career, ’after the pressure the Australia team put on us’, the resilience of Border, he said.
