Cricket: Making of the Lara legend: The new idol of West Indian cricket is feted in his homeland after that world record-breaking feat - Derek Pringle returns to Trinidad, Brian Lara's birthplace, to trace his roots and influences

THE boy is back and everyone in Trinidad and Tobago knows about it. From the moment last Monday morning when Brian Lara overtook Sir Garfield Sobers' monolithic world record of 365 runs in a Test innings, a sporting record that had outlasted Bob Beamon's giant leap for mankind, talk and thought have been of nothing else.

'There wasn't much work done here on Monday afternoon, I can tell you,' joked Joey Carew, who along with most of the Caribbean had watched the feat on television. Carew is the executive manager of the Queen's Park Oval, and an important influence on Lara's development as a cricketer. 'Once again, Brian has brought a lot of glory to his country, which a developing nation like ours needs from time to time. He is a marvellous role model.'

At a reception laid on for him at Piarco airport on Thursday evening, plaudits and accolades gushed like newly struck oil. The Prime Minister, Patrick Manning, proclaimed it 'a red-letter night'. 'Brian Lara,' he said, 'has come home.' Gifts from all quarters have been bestowed upon Trinidad's favourite son of the moment. The national airline, BWIA, has offered dollars 375,000 worth of free air travel to Lara and his 62-year-old mother, Pearl, while his cellular phone company gave him 375 minutes of free air time.

As thousands of people chanted 'Lara, Lara, Lara', a street in Independence Square was symbolically named Brian Lara Promenade. In recognition of the International Year of the Family, the Prime Minister said he could have a house of his choice. Which should come in handy: according to a local newspaper, his mother insists that he must now marry.

As always, such occasions provide a platform for a little political posturing, which although cynical, didn't manage to hijack the evening. At one stage Mr Manning asked the crowd: 'What do you want him to have?' When somebody replied, 'To be Prime Minister,' Manning swiftly countered 'I'm afraid there is no vacancy there,' his grin faltering ever so slightly at the suggestion.

In the midst of a public itinerary and exposure level more akin to a visit by the Pope, it is easy to forget the roots and conditions that nurtured this shining example of national euphoria. While Lara was busy being motorcaded to all parts of the islands, the area around his home, apart from harbouring a passionate pride, remains largely unchanged.

Cantaro village in the lush surrounds of the Santa Cruz valley, half an hour's drive north-east of Port of Spain, is a sleepy place, given over to citrus groves and cocoa, and the occasional flash flood. The pace of life is slow and amenable and everyone knows his neighbour. Old men with walking sticks sit in the shade, while others play draughts as babies totter between tumbles. One can expect to see each of Shakespeare's five ages of man in the space of a few yards. The climate and values of village life, despite the proximity of the capital, are still in their favour.

Along the main road through the village lies a whitewashed house, the birthplace and home of Brian Lara and a family that boasts an entire cricket team among its siblings, a fact that will forever put it on the world sporting map. Of the seven brothers and four sisters, whose ages range from 22 to 44, Brian, who turns 25 in May, is a rank tailender. Second youngest, number 10 in the order.

This was not an encumbrance. Although Brian was always a small, frail child he was not without spirit and he always had a fierce will to succeed. He was also very independent. According to one of his older brothers, Michael, he would play for hours on his own, hitting a lime or a large marble up against the garage wall with a broom handle.

'He used to hold his own England versus West Indies 'Test' matches,' explains Winston, another older brother, who is a fireman. 'He would bat all four innings for both sides by throwing a marble in the air and hitting it. If he missed one, that would count as a wicket. Those 'Tests' used to go on for days.

'We knew he was something special even before he was 10. I remember playing with him and a few others on the street with a tennis ball. Because of the steep bounce most of us had to take the quicker deliveries on the thigh or side of the body. But not Brian. He'd just tuck it away off his hip, all neat and easy. If he ever got hold of the bat at the start of the game nobody else would want to play. You'd never get him out.'

This talent did not go unheeded and Lara's late father, Bunty, was quick to encourage his young son and provided him with his very own bat, pads and ball before he was 10. Cricket was clearly a game Bunty adored for he watched almost all of Brian's games at junior level, as well as enrolling him at the Harvard coaching clinic where he handed over his son to the venerable Hugo Day for tuition.

Not everything was sweetness and light between father and son, though. Apart from showing a remarkable aptitude with the bat, Brian was also a fine footballer, playing for the Trinidad Under-13s alongside Dwight Yorke, the Aston Villa striker. After letting the football lapse he suddenly decided to go for another trial. His father was furious, especially after a street kickabout ended with Brian in hospital, having lost the skin over his kneecap.

'Brian took on Dad over this issue of playing football,' Michael Lara recalls. 'Even though the rest of us were grown up, we would never have dared argue with Dad. But Brian was adamant that his point of view got a fair hearing. He was a determined young fellow but he was always prepared to listen. He never did go for that trial.'

Wilfulness and confidence can sometimes be misunderstood. During the England tour of 1991, Lara, who had not played in any of that summer's Test matches, was asked by the West Indies manager, Lance Gibbs, what his dreams were. 'To break Garry Sobers' 365,' replied the young left- hander. So casually candid was his reply that Gibbs was startled by it and admonished Lara by telling him that there would only ever be one Garfield Sobers.

So when as the newscaster announced, with all the gravity that might have been used when the Enola Gay dropped the first H- bomb, that at precisely 11.46am on Monday 18 April, Brian Lara passed Sobers' world record, nobody would have blamed Lara for cocking a snook in Gibbs's direction. Instead, in an act of respect and sensitivity, which Carew reckons is typical of the man, Lara welcomed Gibbs into the dressing- room for a glass of champagne, saying: 'I hope Lance won't mind if I say that sometimes dreams do come true.'

To those close to Lara, his score of 375 was long overdue. Although there were moments of tension and jubilation in the Lara household, as the whole family bar Pearl - she couldn't bear to watch and busied herself with the grandchildren - crushed into Winston's bedroom to watch the small television screen, none was particularly surprised that he had achieved the feat in only his 16th Test.

'Ever since the day he played for Fatima College and scored a hundred batting at No 7, after the opposition had laughed at him all the way to the crease, we knew he was destined for great things,' says David Carew, a team-mate of Lara's at the time.

For now, Lara is the only player with the ability to break his own world record. This he certainly plans to do, although he knows that everybody will now want a piece of him. The strong family values that he was raised on will never be more severely tested than over the next few years. But as a friend from Cantaro village told me last Thursday: 'He's a cool, cool fellow that Lara.'

AS a holidaying Michael Atherton stopped off in Trinidad to join the Lara admirers, the England party arrived home to some curious criticism by the new chairman of selectors, Ray Illingworth. In between the ignominy of being bowled out for 46 in Trinidad, England's lowest total this century, and Lara's world record, Atherton's side completed a famous victory. Not only was beating the West Indies - after a 3-0 deficit had opened up - a feat worth reckoning with, they achieved it in Bridgetown, the impregnable citadel of West Indies cricket, where no visiting team had won since 1935. Coincidentally, it was also England then, under the captaincy of R E S Wyatt, who prevailed in a closely fought game on a fickle, rain-affected pitch.

In truth, had England not squandered a couple of golden opportunities to place the West Indies on the rack in the earlier Tests, it might not be too far- fetched to suggest that they could have gone to Antigua to decide the series. But by dropping crucial catches and by not paying enough attention to detail - with regards to field placings and bowling changes - a chance to secure victory was lost.

Such mistakes are always highlighted at vital times in the game. One such instance came during the third Test in Trinidad, where Ian Salisbury should have been brought on against Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Winston Benjamin, who were allowed to put together their match-winning stand unchallenged by anything but seam. Several times, Atherton's inexperience allowed the West Indies to climb back into the game that should long have been out of reach from all but the most intrepid mountain goat.

In fact both captains were guilty of tactical negligence. Time after time Richie Richardson confounded team-mates and pundits alike with his decisions, having won three of four tosses - Courtney Walsh won the last toss and batted. In Guyana, Richardson bowled when he should have batted and in Trinidad he did the opposite, after his bowlers had all studied the pitch at great length.

England were unable to capitalise on these howlers and Richardson's bacon was undoubtedly saved on both occasions by his fast bowler Curtly Ambrose. However, in Bridgetown not even Ambrose could drag back the initiative as Richardson again decided to bowl, particularly when every recent pointer indicated a case for batting and of putting the game beyond England, with a big first- innings score. If the series had been poised at 2-1, as perhaps it should have been by then, Richardson's decision to bowl may well have prompted the West Indies' selectors to start looking elsewhere for a captain.

This would have been a shame, because Richardson, who is a gentle soul, has been a great diplomatic find for the West Indies and has diligently managed to keep his side together during some turbulent times. By picking Chanderpaul he has tangibly diluted the Afro-Centrism that Vivian Richards was accused of when he was captain, and the little Guyanese player's success should go a long way towards promoting greater inter-cultural harmony.

When England were last in the Caribbean, under Graham Gooch, Atherton found himself going to Zimbabwe instead, with the England A team. At the time, Ted Dexter (without the aid of his astral charts) said this of Atherton's non-selection: 'It is an indication that we see him as a future England captain.' Little did he know that Atherton had both the determination and the stubbornness to see it through.

In hindsight, once it became apparent that Devon Malcolm and Angus Fraser would never bowl in tandem during the series, England should have brought out a front- line off-spinner like Peter Such. More homework should have been done on the left-handers who dominated the West Indian run- scoring.

That is past and digested, for England must now take on two countries, New Zealand and South Africa, who consistently outperform their capabilities on paper. If England can learn to utilise their resources as these two sides do, Atherton's young lions may yet cause a roar in world cricket.

MEANWHILE, back in Laraville, Friday had been designated National Achievement Day; all schools were given the day off. Although not specifically in honour of Lara, the day undeniably had him as its figurehead. A starring role was played with disarming charm and humility.

So far he and his touring team, Sir Garfield Sobers and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, have had an extremely hectic weekend. On Friday their motorcade started in Arima in the centre of the island, where Lara was mobbed by an enthusiastic crowd. This delayed him by more than two hours on a journey that took in City Hall, where he received the keys to the city. The tour culminated at the Queen's Park Oval, his home club, where thousands of flag-waving schoolchildren had waited for three hours in sweltering heat.

Later in the evening came a reception at the Prime Minister's residence. Celebrity status needs a stamina second to none. If anything should persuade Lara to let those 375 runs lie for a while, this exhausting schedule should do the trick.

Yesterday, adulation switched to his own back yard of Santa Cruz and the southern towns of Chaguanas and San Fernando. With a tour of Tobago scheduled for today, the lionised Lara will hardly be in great shape to join his Warwickshire team-mates in the nets on Tuesday. But perhaps, after the exertions of this marathon weekend, two days in the field will come as a blessed relief.

(Photographs omitted)