KEY POINTS:
For someone so balanced at the crease, it was perhaps not surprising Brian Lara was also balanced off the field. The only problem was that this balance was achieved by having a chip on both shoulders.
Case in point was on his last visit here last year, when
he railed at the lack of respect afforded his team - particularly aggrieved given the West Indies' cricket history dwarfed New Zealand's more modest achievements.
Excuse me? This was a team that lost the one-day series in the blink of an eye and the three-match test series 2-0 (the third was a virtual wash-out).
This from the captain of a team that, on its previous tour to the same country, had lost both tests and all five one-dayers.
Yet Lara wanted respect for the deeds of his predecessors?
But that was Lara wrapped up in a sound bite - proud yet petulant. Fortunately at the crease he uncluttered all that nonsense and was pure poetry.
So where does this small man stand among cricket's giants? There's no point referring to statistics databases for answers. Aside from the peerless Bradman, stats sheets tend to even the greats out.
He will go down as one of the finest 10 batsmen to play the game but instinct tells me he was only the third best of his generation.
Both Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting average slightly more than Lara but again, statistics here don't mean anything.
For me Tendulkar is No 1, though slipping. If Lara thought his burden of trying to keep the proud reputation of West Indian cricket afloat was onerous, it was nothing compared to the weight of a billion expectations every time Tendulkar walked to the crease. Ponting and Lara were also cossetted early in their careers compared to the Indian maestro, who was thrust into the limelight at 16 and has rarely left it.
Tendulkar and Ponting have scored their runs at a consistent flood with few dry spells. Lara, however, was more prone to troughs in between his phenomenal deluges. Ask yourself what is better for the team: a man who scores consistently through a series, or one who does little until exploding for a double or triple century?
Another thing, no matter what cack-handers might tell you, batting left-handed is easier than right.
But Lara was a great, great player and his unbeaten 153 against Australia in Barbados in 1999 will stand the test of time as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, match-winning innings of all time.
In Steve Waugh's autobiography Out of My Comfort Zone, he describes Lara as a "flawed genius", a pithy phrase that nevertheless sums him up perfectly.
This is Lara's second official retirement - the first came 12 years ago on a tour after an altercation with then-captain Richie Richardson. He changed his mind but pulled out of an Australia tour at the 11th hour, claiming "cricket is ruining my life".
It's a shame he felt that way. Imagine how good he could have been if he liked the sport.
