Congrats Brian Lara!!

• Lara struck 277 runs against Australia in Sydney, his maiden Test century, the fourth highest maiden Test century by any batsman ^[5], the highest individual score in all Tests between the two teams and the fourth-highest century ever recorded against Australia by any Test batsman.
• He became the first man to score seven centuries in eight first-class innings, the first being the record 375 against England and the last being the record 501 not out against Durham.
• After Matthew Hayden had eclipsed his Test record for highest individual score 375 by five runs in 2003, he reclaimed the record scoring 400 not out in 2004 against England. With these innings he became the second player to score two Test triple centuries, the second player to score two career quadruple centuries, the only player to achieve both these milestones, and regained the distinction of being the holder of both the record first-class individual innings and the record Test individual innings.
• He is the all-time leading run scorer in Test cricket, a record he attained on 26 November 2005. ^[6]
• In the same innings, he became the second batsman to score 1000 Test runs in five different years, four days after Matthew Hayden first set the record.
• He was the fastest batsmen to score 10,000 (with Sachin Tendulkar) and 11,000 Test runs, in terms of number of innings. ^[7]
• He has (as of 21 November 2006) scored 34 centuries; joint second on the all-time list behind Sachin Tendulkar.
  • He has the most centuries for a West Indian and second most for all Test cricket ^[8]
  • Nine of his centuries are double centuries (surpassed only by Donald Bradman ^[9]
  • Two of them are triple-centuries (matched only by Bradman ^[10]).
  • He has scored centuries against all Test-playing nations. He achieved this feat in 2005 by scoring his first Test century against Pakistan at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados.
• He became only the sixth batsman to speed from 0 to a 100 in one session, doing so against Pakistan on 21 November 2006. ^[11]
• Lara has scored an astonishing 20% of his team runs ^[12], a feat surpassed only by Bradman (23%) and George Headley (21%). Lara scored 688 runs (42% of team output, a record for a series of three or more Tests, and the second highest aggregate runs in history for a three-Test series) in the 2001-02 tour of Sri Lanka ^[13].
• He also scored a century and a double century in the third Test in that same Sri Lanka tour, a feat repeated only five other times in Test cricket history ^[14].
• Lara holds the world record of scoring most runs in a single over (28 runs against left-arm spinner RJ Peterson of South Africa) in Test cricket ^[15]. He also scored 26 runs in a single over off the bowling of Danish Kaneria at Multan Cricket Stadium on 21 November 2006.
• He scored the ninth fastest Test century, doing so off 77 balls against Pakistan on 21 November 2006. ^[16]
• With 162 catches, He is second all-time in the category of most catches in a career by a non-Wicketkeeper, behind Mark Waugh. ^[17].
• In 1994, he was awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Overseas Personality Award. In 1995, he was chosen as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year.
• Comfortably averaging over 50 per innings (the benchmark for batting greatness in Test cricket), Lara has been ranked the number one batsman in Test cricket in the PricewaterhouseCoopers Cricket Ratings several times.^[18].
• Lara has played some of his best innings in recent years. Wisden published a top 100 list in July 2001, a distillation of the best performances from 1,552 Tests, 54,494 innings and 29,730 bowling performances. Three innings by Lara were placed in the top 15 (the most for any batsman in that range).^[19] His heroic 153 not out in Bridgetown, Barbados, during West Indies' 2-2 home series draw against Australia in *1998-1999 was deemed the second greatest Test innings ever played, behind Bradman's 270 against England in the Third Test of the 1936-1937 series at Melbourne. On 13 October, 2003, PricewaterhouseCoopers Ratings team published a list of top innings since 1990 under their own methodology. Lara's 213 against Australia in Kingston, Jamaica in 1999 came out to be the top innings. His 375 was placed 8th and his three other innings, including the 153 not out, were not far behind.

21 April 2007, Lara was run out by Kevin Pietersen for 18 after being called for a run by Marlon Samuels. As he left the ground he was visibly upset by getting out in such away in his last international match.

West Indies and the world will miss him. Let's just take a minute to congratulate Lara for being a wonderful captain, player, and a good human!

Cricket Dev. Team