West Indies legend Brian Lara celebrated his 54th birthday yesterday. The former West Indies captain is currently in India, where he is the head coach of the Sunrisers Hyderabad team in the Indian Premier League. Lara retired from cricket long back, but he continues to play in exhibition matches and also the Road Safety World Series for the West Indies Legends team.
During his legendary international career, Brian Lara played 131 Test matches and 299 ODIs for the West Indies cricket team. He aggregated 11,953 runs in Tests, with his batting average being 52.89. Besides, he also scored 34 hundreds, nine double hundreds and 48 half-centuries in the longest format of the game.
Lara played his last international match on April 21, 2007. 16 years have passed since that game, but here’s a list of four such records of Brian which are yet to be broken.
(Stats credit: Shebas)
1. Brian Lara has the highest individual score in Test cricket
So many great batters have played in the Test format, but only one player has achieved the feat of toucing the 400-run mark, and he is none other than Lara. The West Indies legend has the highest score in Test cricket – 400*.
2. Brian Lara has the highest individual score in first-class matches
Lara is the only player to score 500 in a single first-class innings. The left-handed batter’s highest score in first-class cricket was 501*.
3. Number 1 ODI batter for 5 years
It is the dream of every batter to remain at the top of the ICC Rankings for one month, but Brian remained at the helm of the ICC ODI Rankings for batters for five consecutive years. His streak lasted from 1993 to 1997.
4. Highest percentage of team’s runs scored
The first two records would have clarified that Lara was a specialist of playing marathon knocks. He also owns the record for the highest percentage of team’s runs scored in Test matches, having scored 18.87% runs for West Indies.
