Written by: Rik
Date posted: March 5, 2007

Brian Lara is one of the most successful batsmen to have ever played the game of cricket. His first Test century was a monumental feat, an innings of 277 for the West Indies against Australia in 1993, and in April 1994 he broke the world record for an individual score in a Test innings by scoring 375 against England. Months later, while playing in county cricket for Warwickshire, he broke the record for the highest score in first-class cricket by racking up an astounding score of 501 (not out) against Durham.

Though some dazzling individual performances glossed over a largely unsuccessful first period in charge of the West Indies team, his form tailed off for a while, most notably on the tour to South Africa in 1998/9, but he soon recovered his touch, scoring heavily against Sri Lanka in 2001/2 and he was restored to the captaincy the following year. In 2004 he reclaimed the Test world record score from Australia’s Matthew Hayden by scoring an astonishing 400 not out (again, against England), sealing his place as one of the modern greats.

Lara has leant his name to a number of games over the years, the first of which was Brian Lara’s Cricket, released by Audiogenic in 1994, largely to cash in on the record-breaking success of the player. The game itself was virtually identical to other Audiogenic titles such as Allan Border’s Cricket and Graham Gooch’s World Class Cricket, although it was successfully ported to the Sega Megadrive where it achieved a cult following (and an update/sequel in 1996). The similarly-titled Brian Lara cricket (reviewed here) followed in 1998, and the series was revived by Codemasters once again in 2005 with the release of Brian Lara’s International Cricket 2005 – with a 2007 version to follow.