James Lawton: Lara's renaissance untimely for England

The place of choice for any cricket lover these last days was surely Sydney Cricket Ground, where Steve Waugh was marching off down the high road of history and Sachin Tendulkar was providing the latest evidence of his batting genius.

But then Cape Town, where Brian Lara became the fastest man to 9,000 runs, wasn't exactly a side-show. There have been several times over the last few years when it seemed that Lara was at the point of breakdown. He seemed like a burned-out case. Too much cricket, too much attention, too much of everything for a boy from a poor street in Trinidad whose first bat was fashioned by his brother and whose first ball was an unripened orange from the tree at the back of his wood-frame house.

But his talent has held and, at 34, his appetite is strong again. It is something to celebrate for all but the English bowlers preparing to fly to the Caribbean. For them, you can only weep.