Batting great Lara flawed as captain

By Colin Croft Former West Indies fast bowler

When you look at Brian Lara's statistics and the legacy his batting has left for West Indies cricket, you have to be very impressed.

Lara has failed to show leadership during the sponsorship row

Normally greatness is bestowed on batsmen after they manage an average of over 45. Lara's, after 112 Tests, is 52.84, including the famous 375 and 400.

In two spells as captain, though, he has been less impressive.

Lara was seen as so childish, spoilt and selfish that making him captain for the first time - in 1998 and '99 - was tantamount to allowing a kid into a toy-shop.

The West Indian cricket fraternity normally makes the mistake of making the most dominant player of the team the captain of the team, Gary Sobers being the first example.

The two most successful captains of the modern era, Clive Lloyd and Rohan Kanhai, were not the dominant player of their respective teams.

When he took over from Courtney Walsh, Lara was too divisive, very much like a politician, using the tactics of "divide and rule" to get some of his team behind him.

Like Viv Richards, Lara failed to understand that not everyone was as great as he was

In any case, he was certainly not mature enough in the game, even if he had been making runs like rain.

His first Test series, at home to England, was a great success, Lara making 417 runs at an average of 52.12 in a 3-1 victory.

His captaincy was good, innovative and imaginative initially, definitely on the positive side. Things were looking up.

But then came a fateful tour of South Africa, when the great batsman's selfishness and conceit raised their heads again.

Even before the tour had begun, it had degenerated into a fiasco as Lara, along with Carl Hooper, threatened to derail the trip with extra pay demands. South Africa won 5-0.

The cracks had been showing in 1995, when Lara suggested that cricket was ruining his life, and those cracks opened up to chasms in South Africa.

Lara just could not control his team on the field, perhaps getting some of his own medicine back from his earlier days on the team.

Lara's 153 against Australia saw him retain the captaincy

Lara, despite great misgivings, still managed to retain the captaincy for Australia's 1999 tour of the Caribbean.

There he made a double century and two centuries in a row, including that 153 at Bridgetown, to me his best innings ever

He convinced the selectors with batting and not captaincy, as the West Indies managed to draw 2-2.

It took a dismal 1999 World Cup and a miserable tour of New Zealand the following winter, when they failed to win a single game, to unseat Lara.

However, results following Lara's removal did not improve. If anything, they got worse for a while under Jimmy Adams, including the first series loss in England for 32 years.

Soon Adams gave way to Hooper, but the team kept losing and losing badly.

With no-one else to turn to, the West Indies cricket fraternity turned back to Lara in 2003.

LARA AS TEST CAPTAIN One-off v India 1997: Won First spell 1998-99: Won 6, drawn 2, lost 10 Second spell 2003-04: Won 3, drawn 5, lost 13

At the time I felt the move was justified, since the great left-hander had suggested that he was "more mature" and acted it too.

But the 12-Test spell in charge has, to me, been doomed to failure because he, like Viv Richards, failed to understand that not everyone was as great as he was.

Additionally, Lara could not motivate his team to lift their performances together.

The recent sponsorship row was the final straw.

Even though he was not directly seen as being a party in the argument, Lara has been seen again as someone who did not show leadership when he really should have.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul's appointment brings another return to the ranks.

Lara certainly will want to play in the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean, but I doubt that he will ever be regarded as a good enough captain to be given that chance again.