How Yorke coaxed Lara back from brink of retirement

By Paul Newman

TRINIDAD, MAY 16. Dwight Yorke has emerged as the key figure in Brian Lara's dramatic about-turn from the verge of retirement to the heart of the West Indies touring party, which will arrive in England early next month.

Lara's brilliant but tainted career appeared to be coming to an abrupt end last Monday when he refused a request from the West Indies Cricket Board to captain their A team in the current match against Pakistan here in Barbados.

The selectors saw this tour match as the ideal opportunity for Lara - who has not picked up a bat since Feb. 8 - to prove his fitness, physically and mentally, before returning to a West Indies side galvanised by new captain Jimmy Adams. Lara's response, however, was brief and to the point. In no uncertain terms he refused the invitation.

So affronted did Lara appear to be by the request to drop down to the A team that he told those closest to him that he would, just a few days after his 31st birthday, never play cricket again. The ailing health of his ageing mother, Pearl, cited as the reason last week for his reluctance to tour, is genuine but far from the whole story.

Michael Findlay, the West Indies chairman of selectors, said privately, at the announcement of the tour party here last week, that Lara's closest friend intervened immediately after Lara had sent a brief letter to the board informing them that his self- imposed exile from the West Indies team, stretching back to the end of their unhappy tour of New Zealand earlier this year would continue. That friend is Yorke.

The Manchester United striker was back in the Caribbean for two World Cup qualifying matches against Haiti and scored in Trinidad and Tobago's 3-1 first-leg victory in Port of Spain. Now he had to undertake a far greater challenge.

The `bond' put to good use

Lara and Yorke have always been close and have cemented their friendship by setting up a sports management company, along with Yorke's fellow Trinidad international, Russell Latapy. They named it LLAY - Latapy, Lara and Yorke. The world-record holding batsman was also with Yorke to celebrate his recent birthday, the pair travelling to Barbados to party, a form of entertainment of which they are not exactly shy.

So Yorke ventured to Lara's palatial mansion in the Port of Spain hills to talk to his great friend. Money was not a huge issue, although Lara can expect to earn at least u100,000 from commercial activities associated with a summer's cricket in England to top up his West Indies salary. The truth is Lara, following his record-breaking run in 1994, when he became both the highest Test and first-class individual run-scorer, has enough money to last a lifetime. More pertinent was the health of his mother and his lack of desire to return to a West Indies set- up with which he has repeatedly clashed.

It is no secret that Lara has endured an uneasy relationship with Pat Rousseau, president of the West Indies board. The Jamaican has not shown the same patience with Lara's mood swings as did his predecessor, Peter Short, who managed to coax Lara into returning to the West Indies 1995 tour party to England after he had quit, saying: ``Cricket is ruining my life.''

Rousseau prefers a tougher stance, sacking Lara as captain during the infamous five-day 'strike' at Heathrow airport before their South African tour in 1998 until he was forced to reinstate him to end the squalid affair. It is no coincidence that Lara's latest spat comes at a time when Rousseau was being challenged for his position by outspoken Trinidadian Alloy Lequay, who made the return of Lara the mainstay of his unsuccessful electioneering rhetoric.

Lara threatening to miss the England tour, the theory went, severely weakened Rousseau's grip on the helm of West Indian cricket. Rousseau, however, is staying in power. But Yorke told Lara he was too good and too young to walk away, that the West Indies needed him if it is to maintain it's 30-year-run of success against England and that Adams, who has described Lara as being like a brother, wanted him alongside him. It was a message repeated by Richard de Souza, the Trinidad member of the West Indies board, and Joey Carew, Lara's mentor and now a selector.

The turning point

By the time the selectors had chosen their tour party in Guyana, Lara had been convinced that he had to go, good news for the strength of West Indies cricket but bad news for Darren Ganga. The young batsman was in the initial party and found out through leaked newspaper reports which appeared throughout the Caribbean, the Trinidad Daily Express exclaiming on its front page `Goodbye forever' together with a picture of Lara. The next day's report, however, was slightly different in tone. `Hello again' said the front page as the selectors bade farewell to Ganga and replaced him with Lara.

De Souza had taken the initiative, on behalf of Lara, and rang Findlay to tell him of the change of heart. Lara's return had been described at that point as automatic but, as Findlay, himself threatened as chairman by Carew, told the Sunday Telegraph, that was not the case.

``I rang Brian immediately and had a long chat with him about his mother, his career and his development as a person,'' said Findlay, who feels West Indies cricket has not done enough to support Lara during his troubled times.

``I told him he should confide in people more and ask for help when he needed it. By the end of the conversation I had convinced myself he was totally committed to West Indies cricket, so I rang my fellow selectors.'' Still, the panel of Findlay, Carew, Joel Garner, coach Roger Harper and Adams had their doubts.

``I wouldn't say it was a difficult decision but the selectors were concerned about Brian's state of mind considering all that has happened,'' said Findlay. ``They asked whether Brian was sure he was ready but once he gave us that assurance, and I spoke to him again to make sure, the decision was made to bring him back.''

Yet can Findlay and the West Indies, be absolutely sure Lara, who sought five days of psychiatric counselling in the United States in March and spent most of his recent time at the Moka golf course in Trinidad rather than thinking of cricket, will be on the plane on May 31? Findlay's parting comment betrayed his inner feelings: ``Who's to say that tomorrow something drastic might not happen that affects Brian deeply,'' said Findlay. ``But for the moment, I have every confidence he'll be fine.'' A region holds its breath.

- Copyright: The Telegraph Group Ltd., London, 2000

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