Trinidad and Tobago had its own "The Independent" several years ago. It was a break away from The Guardian after a fallout with the Board. It was later bought out by The Express and subsequently shut down. Below is the interview.
Brian Lara: 'I am hoping that the World Cup is a watershed moment'
Brian Viner Interviews: The West Indies captain is almost as eloquent with the word as the willow and, as he prepares for cricket's global celebration, he talks of his past, present and future with candour and class.
A big crowd of journalists is milling around excitedly on the ground floor of a private members' club in Covent Garden, a spectacle that troubles me, for I am here to interview Brian Lara and was assured that I would be one of only a handful of newspapermen to be given time with the great man.
Happily, after a slight misunderstanding with the receptionist who keeps saying "the who?" when I explain that I am here to see the West Indian cricket captain Brian Lara, it turns out that the media throng is here for a press conference to announce a European tour by The Who. For the Lara interview I need the fourth floor, and as I make my way upstairs to meet, with apologies to Roger Daltrey, the cork ball wizard, I wonder whether Daltrey, a keen cricket fan, knows that Lara is in the building. He might just want to come upstairs and pay homage.
Trinidad's most famous son is in London for a day to publicise the computer game Brian Lara International Cricket 2007, which I'm sure is absolutely terrific, although he understands that it's not high on my list of conversational priorities. There is an imminent World Cup in the West Indies to discuss.
"People back home are very excited," he says. "We'll never get an Olympics or a soccer World Cup but to have a global event like the cricket World Cup is fantastic, and everyone hopes it will leave a legacy. Most of the islands in the Caribbean rely economically on tourism, and we want visitors to take home the message that we're accommodating and hospitable. Obviously, people in Europe and America know about the Caribbean already, but the World Cup will help us get the message to places like India and Australia too."
OK, that's the tourist board shtick over: now, what chance do he and his team-mates have of actually winning the thing? "A very good chance," he says. "We've played in two ICC tournaments between the 2003 World Cup and now, and we've won one and got to the final of the other, so we know we have the players capable of doing very well. And the Caribbean has unique conditions for cricket, which we're accustomed to. The host nation has never done well in the cricket World Cup, but we can turn the tables on that."
I ask him whether his team has a secret weapon, and he gives one of his 100-kilowatt smiles. "I've told the younger players that there's no way we're going to win the World Cup on the back of four or five experienced players such as myself and [Shivnarine] Chanderpaul. We need everyone to contribute and I think Dwayne Bravo will be a force to be reckoned with. Also, Jerome Taylor is a good young fast bowler. But the player no one has really heard of outside the Caribbean is Kieron Pollard. He's never played a one-day international but he's been hitting the headlines back home. He's only 19 but he's really special, an all-rounder and a big hitter, batting at number five."
Lara expects the West Indies, Australia, South Africa and one other to make the last four. "I'd like to say England, who are certainly improving in the one-day arena, as we saw in Australia. But every time I look at the newspapers there is someone else injured. Michael Vaughan, for example, is very important to the team. If they're fit, they're all good players. Kevin Pietersen is a force, Flintoff is a match-winner, Monty Panesar has come into his own in the shorter version of the game. I hope they have a good World Cup."
He was surprised, he adds, that England capitulated in the Ashes, and watched the series unfold with great interest; the West Indies, of course, tour here this summer. It was said during the Ashes, I remind him, that Ricky Ponting had become the world's best batsman. With a record 11,953 Test match runs under his belt, perhaps he might feel inclined to disagree?
He chuckles. "No, I have no argument with that, although I don't think people should compare players. I prefer to appreciate each and every single player for what he brings to the game, including the guys who are not fashionable, or exciting, the likes of Rahul Dravid. If I wanted someone to bat for my life, it would be Dravid, not Ponting, playing those hook shots off his front foot. But I appreciate all players, from Australians down to Bangladeshis, for all the ingredients they bring."
It occurs to me that when he does finally retire his bat - and he assures me that in his 38th year he has no immediate plans to do so, indeed negotiations are reportedly under way for him to come back to county cricket - Lara might have a future as a United Nations diplomat. In the mean time, what does he think of my theory that it is more than coincidence that the very greatest batsmen, such as himself, Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar, are all relatively short men? "Well, I'm a bit taller than Tendulkar," he says, cheerfully. "But yes, [Sunil] Gavaskar, Don Bradman, Sir Garry [Sobers] ... I don't know whether it's something to do with a lower centre of gravity, being more compact, more flexible. Maybe it's because the one thing we can concentrate on is batting. It's not as though we can be fast bowlers."
He was the 10th of 11 children, he adds, citing his place in the family as another significant factor in his development as a cricketer. "It was tough just to get a game on the street with my bigger brothers and their friends, so if I did get a hit, as an eight-year-old playing with 16-year-olds, I had to be good. I was very competitive right from when I was very small, and there came a time when I was 10 years old and they couldn't get me out all afternoon."
The Englishmen standing haplessly in the field when Lara scored 400 not out in Antigua in 2004, and those who watched him hit 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham 10 years earlier, will know the feeling.
But it wasn't just cricket at which he excelled in his youth. When he was 11 he played football for Trinidad against Tobago, in a match to determine the Trinidad & Tobago Under-12 team for a forthcoming tournament. "After that game, there were two names pencilled down first. One was Dwight Yorke, who was only eight years old and already something special. The other was Russell Latapy, who's now the player-coach at Falkirk, and Dwight will tell you that as a kid Russell had more talent than anyone. The three of us have remained great friends." Another broad grin. "We're the three musketeers."
While the other two musketeers pursued their football careers, Lara smashed all records as a schoolboy cricketer, and in 1989, aged 19, got into the West Indies Test squad just days before his beloved father died. "But I didn't make the team, and he died during the first Test in Trinidad. At least he knew that I'd made the squad, but I'd give up anything to have my father watching me at a Test match, sitting alongside Sir Vivian Richards. He did a wonderful job with the entire family, brought us up in the right way, and we have a charity named after my parents, the Pearl and Bunty Lara foundation, so their legacy lives on."
Their 10th child's own legacy, if only as a cricketer, is already assured. I ask Lara if he knows exactly how many Test runs he has scored? "I know I'm 40 or 50 short of 12,000 but it's not something I focus on. It's nice to pass milestones, and to go past a player such as Allan Border was momentous for me, but at the end of the day I would give everything up to be part of a successful team over the last 10 years. I don't ever say that I wish I'd played in the 1970s and 1980s when the West Indies were invincible, because I've enjoyed a good camaraderie with the present players [although not the selectors, who have relieved him more than once of the captaincy]. It's been a privilege, but I regret that I've played through the decline of West Indies cricket."
The World Cup, he hopes, will arrest that decline. But to what does he ascribe it? Is it the growing popularity of basketball? Is it, heaven forfend, sedentary games such as Brian Lara International Cricket 2007?
"Well, when I was a kid the first thing we were given was a coconut branch carved out in the shape of a bat. Now, kids don't leave the house sometimes, with computers to play with, cable TV. But that is not where the problem lies. We have only had 400 or so Test cricketers over 75 or 80 years, so why would we blame the dilution of interest in cricket? The problem is that we have never put anything in place to ensure that those who want to play can play. There is nothing to harness their talent to turn them into international cricketers. I can handle the fact that we have lost thousands of kids to other sports, but not that we let down those who want to play cricket. So I am hoping that the World Cup is a watershed moment, that we go on to build academies, build a grass-roots infrastructure, because we have fallen so far behind England, Australia, even India."
As long as there are kids aiming to become the next Brian Lara, there is hope. But the laid-back culture does not encourage idolatry, and that's the way he likes it. "We're not celebrity-crazy in the Caribbean. You can be Halle Berry or Tom Cruise and yes, you will be acknowledged, but people will leave you alone. I love the fact I can take a run round the Queen's Park Savannah [in Trinidad] and not be bothered. The fanaticism in India [towards Tendulkar in particular] I can't believe."
To return to the World Cup, despite 19 centuries in one-day internationals, and an average of more than 40, Lara's recent form has been unremarkable. He makes no bones of his preference for Test cricket - "for myself there is no comparison, Test matches are the true test of a cricketer's ability"- and yet he insists he is raring to go, both as a batsman and as captain. Moreover, he knows full well the old adage about form being temporary and class permanent, and that applies not only to him but to the side he considers favourite to win.
"You can have Australia four down for 100, and in walks Andrew Symonds. There are six or seven guys in their batting line-up who can destroy you, but if they bat first and get a low total, you can't take that lightly. You have to beat them at the five-over stage, the 10-over stage, the 15-over stage, at every stage all through the match."
Of all the encounters he is looking forward to, beginning with the tournament's curtain-raiser against Pakistan next Tuesday, there is one prospect that fills him with particular pleasure. "Playing against [Glenn] McGrath for the last time will be special, and I hope we face each other in the final. The last time I played Test cricket against him, at Adelaide in 2005, the two big boys, McGrath and [Shane] Warne, both got me out. But I also scored a double-century [226, which took him past 11,000 runs] against them. That was something for the archives." One more big smile. "It will be lovely to face him again."
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