Profiles: Heroes, Role Models and Pioneers of Trinidad and Tobago - by Nasser Khan

161 countries include Australia, Guyana, Antigua, England, Jamaica, Barbados, South Africa, Sri Lanka, St. Lucia, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Sharjah, New Zealand, India, Singapore, St. Vincent, Bangladesh and of course his homeland of Trinidad and Tobago. He has met with world leaders including Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama. Major teams he has played for include the Queens Park Cricket Club, Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies, ICC World XI, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), Northern Transvaal and Warwickshire. He is the fastest batsman in the history of the game to reach 9,000, 10,000 and 11,000 Test runs and would have been the first to 12,000 if he had not retired early just 47 runs short of that total. He is the only batsman to have ever scored a century, a double century, a triple century, a quadruple century and a quintuple century in first-class games. His batting and fielding averages are: In the space of two months in 1994 his 375 and 501 not out broke world records for the highest Test and first-class scores ever by a batsman. In Adelaide, Australia, in November 2005, he went past Australian Allan Border’s total of 11,174 runs to become the batman to score the most number of Test runs. Lara is the current holder of the world record for the highest individual Test score (400 not out) as well as the world record for the highest first class individual score (501 not out). The Brian Lara Promenade in Port of Spain is named in his honour. He was awarded the Wisden ‘Leading Cricketer in the World’ honour for 1994 as well as the prestigious BBC ‘Overseas Sports Personality of the Year’ award. “Signal to Lara” sung by Superblue following his glorious batting feats of 1994 became the Road March in 2005. There are a number of books that have chronicled his spectacular career. • 1992 Humming Bird Medal Silver • 1993, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005 T&T Sportsman of the Year • 1994 Trinity Cross • 1995 Wisden Cricketer of the Year Preceding and following Brian Lara there were and are many top cricketers such as Clifford Roach, Learie Constantine, Jeffrey Stollmeyer, Sonny Ramadhin, Jackie Grant, Gerry Gomez, Joey Carew, Ian Bishop, Charlie Davis, Larry Gomes, Bernard Julien, Gus Logie, Deryck Murray, Phil Simmons, Kieron Pollard, Sunil Narine and Dwayne Bravo. Mat Inns NO Runs HS Ave BF 100 50 4s 6s Ct Tests 131 232 6 11953 400* 52.88 19753 34 48 1559 88 164 ODIs 299 289 32 10405 169 40.48 13086 19 63 1035 133 120