On a different pitch!
Brian Charles Lara may have walked into twilight four years ago and he may have gone unsold at the recent Indian Premier League player auction here but the aura surrounding arguably the greatest left-handed batsman simply refuses to fade.
In the city for a cricket clinic on the sidelines of a promotional function, the West Indian great was the cynosure at the M Chinnaswamy stadium on Thursday. What added lustre to a busy morning -- when some of Karnataka’s young batsmen got an opportunity to pick the legend’s brain -- was the presence of India great and Lara’s one-time on-field rival Anil Kumble. Star India batsman Rahul Dravid, who was training at the NCA gym, too dropped in to exchange pleasantries with the West Indian.
The coming together of two contemporary cricketers, one the great accumulator of runs and the other with an equal hunger for wickets, rolled back the years. “I came to India for the first time in 1984 as part of a Trinidad and Tobago school team,” said Lara prior to holding the clinic. “Since then I have visited India more than any other country,” he added.
Cricket of course is the binding factor between India and his country Trinidad and Tobago which has a large Indian population. “There was one young T&T player who came to India, can you name him?” asked Lara before adding: “It was Robin Singh. He went on to play for India in Tests and one-dayers. We hope one-day someone like Sachin Tendulkar from your country comes to play for us.”
Kumble was quick to return the compliment. “We don’t mind a Brian Lara coming and playing for us,” he remarked. “We know his ability to bat long innings. He has the highest Test score (400 n.o. against England) and he also has the highest first-class score (501 n.o. against Durham). But he also played the game in the right spirit. I remember once he was batting on 91 (Mohali, 2002) and he nicked (Venkatapathy Raju) behind, no one heard anything though. But he walked off and that’s Brian Lara for you,” he recalled.
No single incident has captured Kumble’s never-give-up attitude than the leg-spinner coming on to bowl with a strap around his fractured jaw in the Antigua Test in 2002. Under immense pain, India’s greatest wicket-taker walked on to the field much to the astonishment of everyone.
Lara, who was trapped by Kumble during that phase, had the best seat in the ground to chronicle the event. “Yeah, I remember,” Lara reminisced. “Not only that moment, throughout his career he has been a great servant for Indian cricket. Throughout his playing career he was outstanding. He was a big fighter with the ball and the bat. He’s somebody that any young player could look at and say ‘I would like to be an Anil Kumble’. If you have another one like that, you should be very proud.”
