Brian Lara

Last week, Brian Charles Lara picked up a bat for the last time in international cricket. After he announced his retirement a few days earlier, tributes had started pouring in. It befitted a man who had accomplished so much, often in the face of such adversity.

My memories of Lara are largely gleaned through watching him on TV and hearing of his feats on the BBC World Service or Radio Australia. But I did get to see him in person, back in the 1992/1993 season down under. It was a one-day match, Pakistan vs the West Indies in Perth. The opening match of the annual triangular one-day series in Australia, then called the World Series Cup. Cricinfo tells me that Brian Lara scored 59 that day. I remember that he was shorter than I expected and impeccably balanced in defence and attack.

That was not a particularly memorable match or a memorable performance for a man that had scored 501 in first class cricket and 400 in a Test. But it's my personal memorable match - the first and only time I saw in person this genius of a cricketer.

He must be retiring a weary man, having carried the Windies on his shoulders for years. For a while he had Adams or Chanderpaul to share the toils of batting in an under-performing team, but they did not have the gift of his genius, nor the burden of it. An entire generation of cricket-lovers give thanks that it did not burn itself out completely, as it could so easily have. At some points in his career, it seemed he would leave the game, but he came back to it. He has left it now for good, forever. It seems to be over all too suddenly, and yet his is a legacy 20 years in the making. It has been an astounding career in every way - the runs, the records, the longevity, the beauty, the entertainment and that undefinable sense of immortality.