‘Last home’ ODI: meet man who knows 11-yr-old Lara

Thin, slightly stooping, not very tall, sporting a trimmed salt-and-pepper beard with spectacles, Ramdass, 52, knows Lara like nobody else: “an excellent wicket-keeper, a good leg-break bowler, shy and a very, very little fella, not higher than the stumps, with a huge Afro hairstyle.”

Ramdass, who stays across the road from the main gate of Trinidad’s most famous cricket ground, says Lara at 11 was already great cricket material. “You know how he was as a keeper? The batsman wouldn’t know whether he was bowled or stumped, he was that quick. But more than that, he was very strong up here. If I had his mind, I would have been a millionaire by now,” he smiles, tapping his forehead.

Lara’s father, says Ramdass, was a major inspiration in the Caribbean superstar’s life. “Bunty Lara and his wife Pearl have both passed away. But I remember Bunty clearly. He would come and watch his son play, but never interfere in the coaching. He used to work for the Ministry of Agriculture and offered me saplings to take home, but I asked him to buy me a house first so that I could plant them. He just laughed. He was, as we say in the Caribbean, a down-to-earth person,” says Ramdass.

In fact, Lara’s biggest regret even now, says Ramdass, is that “his father did not live to see him play Test cricket”.

On Lara as a cricketer and captain, Ramdass warns that his opinion “could be biased.”

“When he first headed the West Indies, he was probably the best captain, he probably still is. But he was not given a free rein. Now I think he has a bit more leeway and more experience, too. I don’t know if you remember, when Courtney Walsh was captain and came off the field due to injury in Barbados (1997), India had 120 runs to win. And Brian took over, took the bull by the horns, with three slips and a gully. India crashed. I heard Sachin (Tendulkar) cried after that loss.”

Lara has his great sense of humour, too, says Ramdass. A few years back, he visited the school to talk to the students. “After his speech on the podium, he turned to the principal and said. ‘Sir, I am glad to hear that you have declared a half-day holiday today’. That was it, the boys started jumping up and down and the principal was forced to let them go home!”

ajay.s.shankar@expressindia.com