Brian Lara: Othello of cricket

By John Cheeran
Comparisons are at best odious.
But occasionally there comes times such as today when you got to compare and be damned for it.
Brian Charles Lara, that modern batting great, never needed records to burnish his reputation. Lara is a man beyond records, yet when he achieves a few of them, he needs to be feted.
Lara has overtaken Sunil Gavaskar in terms of the most number of centuries by cracking a coruscating century off a mere 77 balls against Pakistan in the Multan Test today.
Now only Sachin Tendulkar is ahead of him with one century more.
And if fate does not intervenes Lara will run past Tendulkar, may be in the third and last Test of the current series in Pakistan.
I consider Sachin Tendulkar as the Sergei Bubka of cricket.
Bubka, the Ukrainian paul vaulter, had the distinction of breaking world records in his event for the most number of times, at his will. Every time be vaulted, he will leap an inch high. And every inch brought him immense monetary rewards.
The point is that Bubka could not produce his best when it mattered most, during the Olympics. And athletes dope and die for a piece of Olympic gold.
Tendulkar is the man made for records.
And who can be Brian Charles Lara compared to?
I can compare Lara only to Othello, William Shakespeare's tragic hero.
It is not for nothing that critics have pointed out that this swarthy Caribbean has played in most number of losing Tests in world cricket.
Yet Lara evokes awe and admiration despite his loser's tag.
His class, his self-less efforts at crease and the cruel heart he shows when he is pitted against his sworn enemeies, the rival bowlers, all are ornaments to batting.
That, indeed, is a measure of true greatness.