THE COMING FORETOLD

There is something about a potential world great that sends his reputation ahead of him. Just as John the Baptist walked the wilderness of Israel announcing the coming of Christ, cricket scribes throughout the Caribbean were already chanting the name of Brian Lara, even before his first record-breaking performance, as a 17-year-old, in the 1987 Northern Telecom Youth Championships in Jamaica.

Several players and team managers carried the Lara message back to their respective homelands after seeing the diminutive player in his debut in the 1986 tournament in Trinidad and Tobago. He had only two scores worthy of note, 80 against Windward Islands and 61 against Jamaica.

One year later, a bit taller and much more developed physically, Lara placed his name in the Caribbean's cricket history books for the first time, notching 498 runs in the Northern Telecom in Jamaica, eclipsing Carl Hooper's standard of 480 the previous year.

In his debut tournament, he lost many runs because he was not strong enough to get the ball to the boundary but the physical transformation was such that he was now hitting sixes at Kingston's Sabina Park.

Not since Gary Sobers had the game seen a left-handed batsman who showed so much promise. His strokeplay was unmatched by anyone in his own age group and one awaited anxiously more physical development to see what it would bring.

Under Lara's leadership, Trinidad and Tobago walked away with all the trophies at stake in Jamaica that year. They retained the championship, were voted the most sportsmanlike team, Lara scored the most runs and was named the best player while leg-spinner Rajindra Dhanraj set a new record with 44 wickets.

Brian Lara was born to play cricket. At the age of three he already had a bat in his hands. At six he was enrolled at Harvard's youth clinic by is late father, Bunty Lara.

All his brothers before him played cricket and football. One of them, Robert Eustace, was a member of Paragon Sports Club, but it was his sister Agnes Cyrus, who noticed the publication about the Harvard clinic and got the application for Brian to take his place.

Lara was an immediate hit at the clinic and was promoted by coordinator, Hugo Day, from tennis balls to the real thing after just three weeks. From then on, for nine years between January and June, it was his father's duty to religiously drop him off at the clinic every Sunday.

He made rapid progress and, during a tour of Barbados with the Harvard group, he was given a bat by Barbados and West Indies batsman Carlisle Best.

This, and a decision forced on him by his father, Bunty, were significant in seeing Lara carve his name up the ladder of fame in the sport.

Lara was motivated by three world class batsmen during his days at the clinic. His idols were, first, Colin Cowdrey, then Roy Fredericks and finally Gus Logie.

Little Lara saw Cowdrey when he was five years old. He came home and had his father, godfather and brothers bowl to him while he practiced the shots he saw the English captain make. He kept up this exercise until he was satisfied he had mastered the strokes.

When he saw Fredericks his idol changed, for, like the dashing West Indies opener, he too was left-handed. His father had to buy him a white shirt with long sleeves which buttoned at the wrist so he could look like Fredericks, and, of course the bowling in the yard continued until he had mastered the shots he had adopted from Fredericks.

Even now, he still had the white shirt, which caused many of his friends to refer to him as 'Roy Fredericks.'

"Like every youngster, Brian was a lover of football," Bunty (who died in 1989) said. "He was also good at it and, although I was not a football lover myself, I always loved to see Brian play it.

"One Sunday, Brian and his nephew Marvin Guerra, wanted to go to St Augustine Senior Comprehensive School, where there was a trial to select a national youth football squad to tour Puerto Rico," he recalled.

"The same day, Harvard's clinic had double-wicket and single-wicket competitions and I told Brian that if he was going to football, count me out, but if he was going to play cricket, count me in. Brian told Marvin to go ahead to the football as he was coming with me to play cricket."

Although he still played some football and represented his school, Fatima College, in the Colleges Football League, he concentrated mainly on his cricket and scored quite a few centuries with the bat given to him by Barbadian, Best.

It was not the only one he received from top players. Logie, the Trinidad and Tobago and West Indies batsman, also presented young Lara with a bat after seeing his potential.

But it was the one given to him by Best, which he claims, saw him on the tour to India with the Trinidad and Tobago Secondary Schools team in 1985.

That season at home he scored 1,418 runs with seven centuries in all competitions but he just failed to make the Trinidad and Tobago youth team to the Northern Telecom championship because of his size.

He was placed as a reserve but was chosen for the tournament in Trinidad in 1986. It was in Jamaica, the following year that Brian Lara really came to the attention of the wider West Indian public as a record-breaker. A precedent had been set.