Farewell Lara! Barbados bids emotional adieu to master batsman

Barbados, Apr 21 (UNI) This Mecca of Caribbean cricket today bade an emotional adieu to one of West Indies' greatest batsman Brian Charles Lara, who graced the pitch for the last time here today.

Playing against England in the final tie the Super Eight league of the cricket World Cup, Lara did not score much, he was run out when on 18 but his 39 minute stay at the crease was electrifying. He seemed to have united the West Indians as never before and when he left the pitch on which he used to strode like a colossus, thousands in the stands stood to give the master batsman a farewell to remember.

Every road leading to the Kensington Oval here in Bridgetown was chock-a-block with people just flocking to have a glimpse of Lara.

Lara has been legend of West Indian cricket with an unrivalled track record. He did not have the swagger of a Vivian Richards but he reached to the heights which no batsman has been able to achieve.

Lara has been ruthlessly criticized for the way his team has swooped and then crashed out, but with one simple line here two days ago he changed all of that.

''I want everyone to know that on Saturday I'll be playing my last international match,'' he said. ''I'll be bidding farewell to international cricket as a player.'' There was a flood of public sympathy for him here, on this bright, sunny morning, it was all ''Lara, Lara'' at the toss though here on the day, Michael Vaughan won the honours by calling the spin of the coin correctly.

Brian Lara will he be remembered as the record-breaker supreme, a lone batsman of class among a host of mediocrity.

For the first time at this World Cup, one got to see a full house, as we know it, not as so often claimed by the organisers of the tournament where tickets were apparently sold, but less than half the number of seats actually had bums on them.

With Lara's retirement, the cricketing world will never see that high back lift and the shimmering arc of the blade thereafter, those twinkling feet dancing down the pitch towards the spinners, those majestic drives on either side of the wicket. And one feels in his bones that cricket will be just a little poorer for that.

In all, Lara played his 299th ODI, in the course of which he has scored 10,405 runs, (including 19 centuries), record fifth on the all-time scorer's list behind Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya, Inzamam-ul Haq and Sourav Ganguly.

Lara will also not be changing the Test statistics too, which now read 131 Tests and 11,953 runs with a record highest of 400 not out against England an average of 52.88 and 34 centuries.

''I was very confident that I'd play my 300th game at the World Cup,'' he said. ''It wasn't to be. So be it.'' UNI