On Sept. 17, 2024, two decades after one of his finest cricketing achievements, cricket legend Brian Lara launched his book, entitled “Lara: The England Chronicles,” at his residence overlooking the Queen’s Park Savannah in the capital city of Port of Spain, Trinidad.
From as early as his fifth Test match, Lara showed his appetite for big runs when he struck 277 runs in Sydney in 1993 against Australians, including the late Shane Warne. However, he promised to release a separate book on those fierce battles.
For now, Lara is focusing on his struggles against the England team when he broke Sobers’ record of 365 against, and the country in which he scored an astounding 501 not out in a County Championship match for Warwickshire in June 1994. Just two months before his five hundred, Lara, for the first time in Test cricket, scorched 375 against Andy Caddick and the England side at the Antigua Recreation Ground, with a 3-1 series win for the hosts.
Lara played 30 Tests and 29 One-Day Internationals (ODIs) versus the English, rattling off seven centuries with an impressive 62.14 Test average against the opposition.
“(This book is) a journey through my career, maybe against one nation. It has the highs and lows. It has me coming back from tough situations to get back to the top,” Lara said.
“We want the boys and girls to understand that talent is one thing. You’ve got to be tenacious, and you’ve got to be willing to pick yourself up when you fall down for years,” he added.
“That’s been my life. Not only in cricket. Things didn’t come easily; I had to work really hard, and I had to dig deep.”
The attentive audience included Sport and Community Development Minister Shamfa Cudjoe-Lewis, Queen’s Park Cricket Club president Dr Nigel Camacho, members of TT’s under-17 cricket team, and former West Indies and Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR) captain Dwayne Bravo.
“(Sobers is) the greatest cricketer to have ever played the game. It was true when he played the game, and it’s true today,” Lara said, reading an excerpt from the book.
“He also loves me, and I love him for that. From an early age, he always believed in me and expressed it openly. Such words from somebody like Sobers can injure as well as inspire a teenager. But his words always gave me strength.”
Lara’s elegance was something to behold when he was on the go, and he was a nightmare for opposing pacers and spinners—his footwork was in a class of its own. At the end of a West Indies career that started in Lahore against Pakistan in 1990 and ended against England in a 2007 World Cup match at Kensington Oval in Barbados, Lara conquered cricket.
He scored 34 hundreds in 131 Test matches and 19 ODI hundreds, accumulating over 20,000 runs for the Caribbean team.
Lara’s eventual exit from the game was not one he or his fans would have dreamt of, as Kevin Pietersen unceremoniously ran him out after a mixup with Marlon Samuels. The Windies agonizingly lost in the last over against the English, making an early exit from the World Cup on home soil.
“Don’t get me wrong. I don’t feel comfortable with it, and I’m definitely not happy with it. It’s all part of my story. Cricket is the cruelest of all games,” reads an excerpt from the book, recalling the runout. “When you’re out, there are no second chances.”
Pietersen’s bullet throw may have brought Lara’s storied career to an end in Bridgetown, but three years before, Lara’s Windies had the last say against England when they copped the International Cricket Council (ICC) Champions Trophy at The Oval, London.
Though he achieved world records against England, he said the 2004 Champions Trophy win remains one of his proudest moments.
‘Lara: The England Chronicles’ is priced at $33.06, and Lara hopes to have copies in bookstores around the country soon. Starting with TKR’s CPL match with Guyana Amazon Warriors on Sept. 18, Lara also plans to do a CPL book tour for the five TKR matches to be played in Trinidad.
Portions of the book sales will go towards the non-profit organization Heroes Foundation.