War of CricketBrian Lara
Brian Lara is the only man in history to hold the individual scoring record in both Test and first-class cricket, and the only one to have broken the Test record twice. The Trinidadian left-hander made 400 not out against England in 2004 — still the highest individual innings in Test history — and his 501 not out for Warwickshire in 1994 remains the highest score ever recorded in first-class cricket.
The Prince of Port of Spain
Born in Santa Cruz, Trinidad, on 2 May 1969, Lara scored 745 runs at an average of 126 for his school, Fatima College, before making his first-class debut for Trinidad and Tobago and his Test debut against Pakistan in December 1990, aged 20. He batted left-handed with a high backlift, quick hands and a gift for placement that made him, in Wisden's estimation, one of the two or three finest batsmen the game has produced. Nicknamed "the Prince of Port of Spain," he carried an otherwise declining West Indies batting line-up through most of his 17-year career, serving twice as national captain during some of the side's leanest years, and scored a Test century against every Test-playing nation, a set he completed against Pakistan in 2005.
Breaking the same record twice
In April 1994, Lara scored 375 against England at St John's, Antigua, breaking Garfield Sobers' 36-year-old Test record of 365 not out. Two months later he broke a different record: 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham, made in 474 minutes off 427 balls with ten sixes and 62 fours — still the highest individual score in first-class cricket. Australia's Matthew Hayden took the Test record off him in 2003 with 380 against Zimbabwe; Lara reclaimed it for good in April 2004, scoring 400 not out against England on the very ground in Antigua where he had first set the record a decade earlier — the only batsman ever to break the Test scoring record twice. In November 2005 he passed Allan Border's career tally to become Test cricket's leading run-scorer, a distinction he held until Sachin Tendulkar overtook him on 17 October 2008.
A run-machine at his peak
The weeks either side of the 501 not out showed just how dominant Lara was in 1994: he scored six centuries in seven first-class innings for Warwickshire that English season, an unprecedented run of form, and was named the Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World in both 1994 and 1995. He was also one of only three cricketers ever to win the BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year award, alongside Garfield Sobers and Shane Warne. On the field he could carry a struggling team almost single-handedly: in the four-Test home series against Australia in 1998–99, which finished drawn 2-2, Lara scored 213 in the second Test at Kingston and then an unbeaten 153 in the third at Bridgetown, steering West Indies to a one-wicket win chasing 311. Wisden later rated that 153 not out the second-greatest innings in Test history, behind only Don Bradman's 270 in 1936-37.
Retirement and legacy
Lara retired from international cricket on 21 April 2007, run out in a mix-up in what turned out to be his final World Cup innings, against England. He was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in September 2012, received Honorary Life Membership of the MCC in 2013, and later worked as a batting coach in the IPL, including with Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2022. He remains the benchmark against which every West Indian batsman since has been measured, and the last man to have held cricket's most glamorous individual scoring record in both of the game's top two formats.
For Lara's full Test and ODI record, see his player profile. He broke Garfield Sobers' Test scoring record in 1994 and was himself overtaken as Test cricket's leading run-scorer by Sachin Tendulkar in 2008.