Father knows best

Last February, my eight-year-old grandson, Justin Thomas, a Form Two student at Bishop Anstey Junior School, received a merit star for his Family Tree Project in which he stated: “My great-grandfather, Hugo Day, played football for Trinidad and Tobago when he was young. He was a member of Harvard Sports Club and one of the first coaches to show Brian Lara how to hold a cricket bat when he was a boy. The social studies teacher’s comments were “How interesting!!! Thank you for sharing your information with me Justin, it was well appreciated.” But even before that at age four, he had shared with his Nursery School teacher in another project on  who would you like to be when you grow up: I would like to be a Chanderpaul  but Brian Lara is really the cricket.”

Brian Lara has been a part of this family’s conversation from as far back as 1975 when my late father, Hugo, who was one of the most non-talkative men I have ever known, would come home after a Sunday morning of coaching young, budding cricketers, in the broiling sun at the Harvard Cricket Clinic, and mumble to my mother about a youngster whose father, Bunty Lara, comes all the way from Santa Cruz every Sunday to bring his son to the clinic. That son was Brian Lara and my Dad’s continuous predictions were that he was going to go far in the game because he pays attention to instructions and  willingly corrects whatever he may be doing wrong, when told. As Brian grew older in Net 4 where he stayed for four years with my father as his head coach, there would be further comments on how well he was applying himself, and  the positive results when he put his head down to bat.  All from a man who never spoke too much nor got carried away by anything or anybody.

At age ten, Brian moved to Net 3 where the late Rex Dewhurst was Head Coach; at age 12 he went to Net 2 where Azim Hosein was Head Coach and the assistant coach was my brother Dwight, who vividly remembers “from very early in his life he would say he was going to play for the West Indies.  Between 13 and 14 he moved to Net 1 where Lenny Kirton and Gerry Bowen were the coaches. My father eagerly followed young Lara’s cricket career and would occasionally tell us of where he had reached. When he did  not win a place on the 1991 West Indies team touring England, my very patient father was neither disappointed nor annoyed because as far as he was concerned “Brian’s turn will come.”  And it certainly came  in the fifth test against Australia in January 1993 when he scored an unforgettable 277 in Sydney. And when Lara took the time to telephone my father on the Sunday night from Australia,  I vividly remember the excitement was shared by both my parents after he had chatted with Brian about his great innings.

Again, this man of few words simply said: “I told him (Brian)  to keep on doing what he has to do and leave the rest. And don’t let anybody confuse him.” April 1994 quickly followed and this time Brian met with his coaches at Harvard Club. My father wanted to duck out of  the Prime Minister’s reception for the record holding batsman. I offered to take him and bring him home whenever he was ready so to do. Without fanfare, Brian came to where he was standing, greeted him and spoke with him. That was enough for my very retiring Dad and he was ready to go home. After this, when Brian heard that Grandad, as he always called him, was not keeping good health, he paid him a visit. Brian Charles Lara never forgot the part Grandad played in his cricketing career which has now scaled record heights, and took the time to say his final farewell to the man who taught him how he should correctly hold a bat, at All Saints Church on his passing in June 1997.