Would West Indies legend Brian Lara employ the reverse-sweep that England opener Ben Duckett has perfected as one of his primary strokes in Test cricket if he were to play in the current era? Has he ever, during his playing days, had a go at one of those extravagant swipes across the line?
Lara believes he never needed to think in that direction. Finishing with 11,953 runs, averaging 52.88 in 131 Tests with 34 tons, an underrated aspect of the Trinidadian’s batting has been his swift scoring rates across his career, and of course, the appetite for the mega daddy centuries.
Of the 19 batters to have scored 9,000 Test runs, the latest of which was former India captain Virat Kohli, none match up to Lara’s 60.51 strike rate. When former England captain Michael Vaughan curiously asked if Lara would have brought out the unconventional sweeps if he were to bat today, the 52-year-old replied in the negative. He never needed them.
“I have a little boy in Australia who wants to play and that’s all what he wants to do..smack the ball and do all the fancy stuff. First of all, I am happy in he period that I played in. Played a lot of Tests. Everybody would like to be in the T20s (now) with all the funds involved,” said Lara in a chat on the Stick to Cricket podcast.
‘More Kohli than Duckett’
Lara likened himself more to a Kohli than Duckett in terms of shot-making, sticking more to the traditional drift of the longest format. “At the end of the day, I think I had enough shots to survive. And I look at guys like Virat Kohli, they don’t do much of that (reverse sweeps). So I think I would have been one of the players who would have, instead of playing a reverse sweep down to third man, would have hit them over extra cover,” remarked Lara.
Recounting his world record 400*, which was considerably threatened by South Africa stand-in captain Wiaan Mulder who retired on 367 not out against Zimbabwe (partly in honour of Lara), West Indies’ record Test run-scorer said he felt the England bowlers didn’t quite want to bowl to him in that Test in Antigua in 2004.
At the very same venue where he broke Garry Sobers’ world record of 365 in 1994 against the same opposition with his 375, Lara said he wasn’t in the process of targetting 400 with his team trying to stave off a 3-0 series whitewash against England at home.
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“When I got to 100, I realised that (Steve) Harmison, who was the most dangerous, didn’t want to bowl much. If you look at the stats, he was the only one who didn’t go for 100, he came off at 92,” Lara said as he recalled the iconic knock that reclaimed his status at the pinnacle of the Test batting board, after Australia opener Matthew Hayden had held the world record briefly with his 380 against Zimbabwe in 2003.
“You really think I was thinking about getting to towards 400? No chance! I get 100, you get a double, I look at the bowling attack and you can tell the guys don’t really want to turn up,” he added.
