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Lara`s family and hometown celebrate world cricket record
Cantaro (Trinidad), Apr 13: Brian Lara`s family watched his world record cricket score on a TV they set up outside his childhood home to celebrate with friends and neighbours.
Cantaro (Trinidad), Apr 13: Brian Lara's family
watched his world record cricket score on a TV they set up
outside his childhood home to celebrate with friends and
neighbours.
Lara set test cricket's highest score at 400 not out
on the third day of the West Indies' fourth test against
England at Antigua yesterday, and the village of 2,500
northeast of Trinidad and Tobago's capital erupted in joy at
the achievement of the man they call the "prince of
Port-of-Spain."
"Brian always had an appetite for big things," said one of his six brothers, Winston Lara, 51.
The modest brick-and-cement home where Lara grew up as the youngest son of a government agriculture officer and a housewife - both of whom have died - turned into a party as Lara reclaimed the record he lost in October to Australian Matthew Hayden, who set the standard with 380 against Zimbabwe in Perth.
Drivers blew their horns and blared local Soca music on the dusty streets of Cantaro where Lara as a kid batted with coconut tree branches. Cantaro has since named a playing field after its favourite son, with a picture of him batting mounted on the sign.
Villagers remembered Lara, who was taken to a cricket clinic by his sister Agnes when he was seven, as intensely competitive, even as a boy.
"When Lara was a young boy, he used to cry because he was out," private contractor Roger Carimbocas, 42, said.
At 15, Lara was playing under-19 cricket, and at 18 he was captain of the West Indies under-23 side. The following year, 1988, he led West Indies at the youth world cup.
"The man was a perfect cricketer from when he was a baby," said car mechanic Freddie Gordon, 52. Lara now lives in a palatial house on a hill in Trinidad's capital, and still visits Cantaro frequently, stopping for a beer at the valley bar and spending time with family, locals said.
At the tiny barroom around the corner from his childhood home, patrons were hoisting beer and glasses of rum, hugging each other, and holding a portrait of Lara in the air.
"Lara is the greatest ever batsman that ever passed through Trinidad, and possibly the greatest ever to pass through the world," contract labourer Winston Regis said.
Bureau Report
"Brian always had an appetite for big things," said one of his six brothers, Winston Lara, 51.
The modest brick-and-cement home where Lara grew up as the youngest son of a government agriculture officer and a housewife - both of whom have died - turned into a party as Lara reclaimed the record he lost in October to Australian Matthew Hayden, who set the standard with 380 against Zimbabwe in Perth.
Drivers blew their horns and blared local Soca music on the dusty streets of Cantaro where Lara as a kid batted with coconut tree branches. Cantaro has since named a playing field after its favourite son, with a picture of him batting mounted on the sign.
Villagers remembered Lara, who was taken to a cricket clinic by his sister Agnes when he was seven, as intensely competitive, even as a boy.
"When Lara was a young boy, he used to cry because he was out," private contractor Roger Carimbocas, 42, said.
At 15, Lara was playing under-19 cricket, and at 18 he was captain of the West Indies under-23 side. The following year, 1988, he led West Indies at the youth world cup.
"The man was a perfect cricketer from when he was a baby," said car mechanic Freddie Gordon, 52. Lara now lives in a palatial house on a hill in Trinidad's capital, and still visits Cantaro frequently, stopping for a beer at the valley bar and spending time with family, locals said.
At the tiny barroom around the corner from his childhood home, patrons were hoisting beer and glasses of rum, hugging each other, and holding a portrait of Lara in the air.
"Lara is the greatest ever batsman that ever passed through Trinidad, and possibly the greatest ever to pass through the world," contract labourer Winston Regis said.
Bureau Report