Immortal Lara still 501 not out 20 years later

08 June 2014 - 02:30 By ROB BAGCHI
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UNBEATEN: Brian Lara's huge innings remains the record first-class cricket score
UNBEATEN: Brian Lara's huge innings remains the record first-class cricket score
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There are a couple of subjects two decades in sports-writing teach you to address with caution, unless you want to solicit correspondence doubting your parentage, sanity and the courage to walk down an ill-lit street at night.

The first is Liverpool's transfer dealings under Rafael Benítez, a topic for remorseless disputation that is still simmering.

The other is to honour any batsman by extolling his virtues without appending the almost scriptural rider "but of course Sachin Tendulkar is greater".

On Friday, though, there was an exception because cricket celebrated the 20th anniversary of Brian Lara's unbeaten 501, the record first-class score.

Playing for Warwickshire against Durham, he began the fourth morning on 111, his sixth century in seven county championship innings for the county and, because a day's play had been lost and the captains were unable to agree on contriving a result, had a day at his mercy.

Seven weeks earlier, he had broken Sir Garfield Sobers's record for the best test score with 375 for West Indies against England at St John's in an innings of astonishing perseverance and insatiable accumulation on a featherbed pitch.

Lara had agreed to join Warwickshire 10 days before that Antigua Test and had signed a contract for a bargain £40000. Dermot Reeve's team had initially looked to recruit a bowler, India's Manoj Prabhaka, who failed a fitness test in the nets at Edgbaston. The vice-chairman was dispatched to the Caribbean in some haste.

On such quirks of fortune are records made. Lara enjoyed slices of luck during his marathon knock too, surviving when bowled by Anderson Cummins off a no-ball on 12, had a catch grassed by Cummins on 238 and was dropped by two wicketkeepers, Durham's Chris Scott when he had made 18 and, 395 runs later, by Warwickshire's reserve stumper, Mike Burns, fielding at square leg as a substitute for the opposition.

Between those lives, and after the last, he simply kept scoring, going past Graeme Hick's 405, Bill Ponsford's 429 and 437 and Don Bradman's 452 until only Hanif Mohammad's 499 for Karachi against Bahawalpur remained above him.

Before then, he had managed to convince Reeve to let him continue as the captain pondered a declaration at lunch.

Keith Piper joined him at 448 for four and was instrumental in pushing Lara on; indeed, telling him when he was on 497 and had just been clanged on the helmet by John Morris, that they were in the last over and he had two balls to make history.

Lara punched the next delivery through the covers to become the first and, to date, only man to breech 500.

Warwickshire ended on 810 for four, their No3's quintuple century coming off 427 balls with 62 fours and 10 sixes.

Warwickshire went on to win the championship, Sunday League and Benson and Hedges Cup in their annus mirabilis and Lara finished the first-class season with 2066 first-class runs at 89.82.

Like his 375 and subsequent recapturing of the best Test score with 400, the 501 was more monument than truly magnificent.

His 277 at Sydney, 213 in Jamaica and 153 in Bridgetown were infinitely superior. When the great destroyer of attacks was properly tested, those boxer's feet danced and that bat came down from on high with the swiftness of a guillotine, whipping, caressing and thrashing superb bowlers around the field. Records are understandably important to players, but Lara would have earned his immortality without them. - ©The Daily Telegraph, London

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