A majestic serenity
FRANK KEATING
"E' or such a sublimely beauteous batsman he has a vulgarian's gluttony for runs. Brian Lards monolithic 400 not out mercilessly upstaged England's victory parade in the Caribbean but, no matter, the already accomplished series win had invigorated English cricket. To be sure, Lara invigorated all cricket. The other unique thing about the utterly ravishing record, I suppose, was that it was acclaimed not so much by his own Caribbean compatriots but by English holidaymakers who outnumbered the locals in Antigua's dinky little Rec by 80 per cent. I was at Antigua's first Test in 1981, when the ground was prepared by trusties from the next-door prison and Vivian Richards celebrated his wedding to Miriam (best man: I.T. Botham) with a blistering centwy. There was scarcely a handful of Brit trippers there then to applaud the foe, the chivalrous precept which remains one of the dear old pastime's glories. Which is also what Lara is, imperishably. In a way Lara has already out Bradmaned Bradman. Seventy years ago, Bradman had posted highest scores in both first-class cricket (452) and Tests (334). Lara's twin peaks now stand at 501 and 400.
Bradman was the irresistible accumulator. I fancy Lara's greedy sweet tooth for runs is more Epicurean, more sensuous, his lefthandedness somehow providing an aesthetic extra — as it did, apparently, with old-timer Woolley and certainly in my experience with England's Gower, South Africa's Pollock and the Kiwi Donnelly. I first laid eyes on Lara when he was a lissome colt 13 springtimes ago, when he announced himself with a century against the students in The Parks at Oxford. I lolled in the long grass to watch it, and I don't know much but, for quicksilver suppleness of footwork and placement. conception, execution and sheer joy, I knew that a prince had come, a monarch of sweet timing, liquid grace — and pitiless command. Cardus once derided a pressbox mate who described Woolley as 'brilliant', chiding that the word suggested vivid colour: 'In Woolley's batsmanship there is only radiance, never a light which is garish. Same with Lara; even when he is hitting sixes the softest splendour falls over the field. After that Oxford innings in 1991, behind the pay the young man sulkily hinted to a couple of us that he would not make the summer's Test team (nor did he), suggesting the manager Lance Gibbs was either jealous of his talent or reckoned him too big for his boots (a bit of both, I daresay). But in just over a year he had scored his first Test century at Sydney — 277 to be precise, wow! — and the elfin, ancient Bradman pronounced it the best debut innings he had ever seen. In 1994, Ulm scored nine 100s in almost as many innings for Warwickshire, and I happened to be there to swoon at two or three of them. So, luckily, was Alan Ross, last of the cricket-writing luminaries of my boyhood hero-worship: 'Lara, alert as a gundog, scenting something, giving nothing away . . . anticipatory, a sixth sense making him ready, even before the bowler lets go.'
Cricket neurotically frets about its present, but we live in batsmanship's golden age: the Indian Tendulkar, textbook perfect, and his confrere Laxman, courteous assassin; the hale and manly short-shrift no-quarter Aussies Hayden and Ponting; the lugubrious, ursine, timeless Pakistani Inzaman. The audacious, exotic yet almost Buddha-like Lara is most entrancing of all. They say he is arrogant. I have never found him so. Mind you, he has an awful, awesome lot to be arrogant about.
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