Former West Indies cricketer Brian Lara. File
| Photo Credit: AP

It was 25 years ago that Mark Butcher scored a monumental 173 not out in England’s successful chase against Australia in the Headingley Test. He scored seven other Test hundreds, some of them against the most fearsome attacks. He is now a popular commentator and sharp analyst of the game. Excerpts from Butcher’s exclusive interview with The Hindu at Lord’s:

Your comparison of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi with Garry Sobers earlier this year got a lot of attention. It was fascinating, how you proved, through the help of visuals, the similarities in the bat swing, hand speed…

I watched him make that 175 [off 80 balls] in the Under-19 World Cup final [against England at Harare]. I was struck by that incredible, long, high backlift, the huge follow-through, the complete circle almost where the bat finishes around, tapping him on the spine. You know, Sobers used to hit a lot of shots with his feet together. He would play full balls almost off the back foot. And Sooryavanshi can hit them like that too.

Even if his career ends up not reaching the expectations that other people have, which I think is very unlikely, he has still in the IPL done something that all of the greatest players up until now have never, ever done: none of them have managed to score at a strike-rate of 230, hit that many sixes, be that consistent in the entirety of the IPL. It is still one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen.

Today’s youngsters are exposed to T20 from the beginning, whereas when I was very young, it was Test matches. They grow up thinking about batting very much in a hyper aggressive mode. These younger guys can do things at their age that we wouldn’t have dreamt of at ours.

ALSO READ | Garry Sobers: cricket’s greatest — a legacy beyond numbers

Yes, even Sachin Tendulkar didn’t hit as many sixes, for all his genius. Sooryavanshi is a product of the T20 era of cricket.

Correct. So he will have to learn the game the other way around. He will have to learn how to bat time, to defend. In our generation, it was the opposite. We would have to spend a lot of time learning how to hit the ball.

How do you recall your masterpiece — 173 not out in 2001?

My main memory is about that summer, really. I wasn’t expecting to play Test cricket again. I got an opportunity and I played 42 Tests in a row. I had completely changed my game.

Your father helped, didn’t he?

That is right. The biggest thing I remember is the relationship I had with my dad in the winter of 2001. I called him and said, ‘Dad, I am hating playing cricket.’ Something that I had always loved. Now I was hating it. And I said to him — ‘Treat me as though I have never played the game before.’ So we went right back to the beginning. He really taught me how to hold the bat, how to stand, the whole thing. We changed my grip. We changed my stance. We changed my backlift. Everything. We went back to zero. Like I was five years old. And we worked like that for about three months. And then I luckily got back into the team. I had made a few runs playing for Surrey. A few injuries in the England camp before the Ashes started, and I got in.

How much does that knock, which came against Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie, mean to you?

Ah, it was huge. You wouldn’t be talking to me if it hadn’t been for that. And I wouldn’t be working in TV either. So that innings changed everything. It was the greatest day.

And how was the coach’s reaction?

I know my dad was in tears when [BBC] Test Match Special called him up.

The players you like to watch these days?

I actually love watching K.L. Rahul. I think he is a sensational player. Really classy. Harry Brook is fabulous to watch when he is in. Joe Root, too. And Travis Head — you can’t take your eyes off the screen when he is batting.

You have played against some of the greatest bowlers in history. Who were the most challenging among them?

Blimey! Curtly Ambrose. Him and Courtney Walsh. And then you had, obviously, Shane Warne. Glenn McGrath. Murali [Muttiah Muralitharan].

Among the Indians?

Harbhajan [Singh] and [Anil] Kumble, on those tracks.

And the batters you admired?

[Brian] Lara was sort of the king around about those times. Fellow left-hander, so I greatly admired him. Then the guys like [Ricky] Ponting, Sachin [Tendulkar], obviously. I remember applauding Ricky from second slip at the WACA, much to the annoyance of Nasser Hussain, who was standing next to me at slip. He glared at me. I was just standing there going, ‘Oh man, that’s good’. There were a lot of great players around, like the South Africans, Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith.

An aesthete’s eye: A batting stylist in his time, Butcher appreciates elegant strokeplay. Brian Lara, K.L. Rahul and Smriti Mandhana are some of his favourites.
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images

Is there cause for concern about the future of Test cricket?

Yeah, of course, there is. What you would like is to have eight to ten teams who are competing on a level playing field. If only England, Australia and India are playing each other, the game is starting to eat itself, you know.

Eventually, one of the great things about all of the series that go around is that you are anticipating and you are excited about the idea about playing this team at this venue. But if it is the same three teams the whole time, it is not that exciting.

What has happened in the modern era is that the gap between the countries that have plenty of finances and the rest has got wider. The competition has perhaps thinned out a little bit in recent times. And that is a huge shame, that finances have meant that a lot of countries, the West Indies, being the most obvious example simply because of their dominance [in the past], have suffered.

South Africa are kind of hanging in there. They are still producing a lot of players and they still manage just about to keep enough of their most talented players to play Tests. But in places like Sri Lanka and the West Indies, they find it very difficult to keep their best players who disappear off to earn more money playing T20. And that is a problem for the world game.

The First Class game and the structures that produce Test Match cricketers are strong in some places and not very strong at all in others.

Your thoughts on Bazball?

I have been critical of it at times. In the game of cricket, the Test match is the game. And they tried to do something that was going to take the game to a different place. But Test match cricket kind of fought against it a little bit. Because when it came down to it, in the big games against the likes of India and Australia, it didn’t work. And so, Test match cricket is kind of greater than any idea that people might have around how you play it.

And Test cricket is the greatest form of sport.

It is. The sport itself dictates to you what is necessary. And if you push too hard, the game will bite you back. And that is what happened. There is as much pleasure to be taken from a really hard-fought draw sometimes as there is from smashing it all over the park.

ALSO READ | Cricket World Cup – Will expansion lead to elevation?

The women got to play a Test at Lord’s, finally.

This has come about because the world has decided, well, you know, this is a great game of cricket, right? Why would we want to stop 50% of the world’s population from enjoying and playing the sport that we think is a great sport? And so that opportunity is now there and what you are seeing is a product of that.

Players in the women’s game that you enjoy watching?

I like Smriti Mandhana’s batting. She is just an incredibly graceful player. So easy on the eye. Very, very lovely to watch. She plays pace and spin equally well. She reminds me of David Gower, in fact. Harmanpreet Kaur is very good to watch, too. And Jemimah Rodrigues is a fine technician.

Besides cricket, music is your other passion. And you had the opportunity of performing with Sarah Brightman, one of the greatest voices of our time.

It was good fun, singing some of Sarah’s favourite songs on live television. It was kind of nerve-racking, but it was good.

Former West Indies cricketer Brian Lara. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar, center, and RPG Group Chairperson Harsh Goenka, left, present the ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ to West Indies’ cricketer Brian Lara during the ‘CEAT Cricket Rating Awards’, in Mumbai, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025.
| Photo Credit: PTI

India opener Yashasvi Jaiswal is equipped to “play in any conditions” but will need to make some mental adjustments for the upcoming tour of Australia, the legendary Brian Lara said on Tuesday. Jaiswal has established himself as a vital cog in the Test side with 929 runs in only eight matches this year at 66.35, his two centuries and six fifties putting him as the leading run-scorer for India in 2024. “He has got the ability to play in any conditions. I saw him in the Caribbean. Obviously, the pitches in Australia are slightly different, but if you take that sort of strength that you have, you’re going to play good cricket in any conditions.

“I expect to see him do well,” Lara told the media during the launch of the International Masters League.

The West Indies great said Jaiswal will need to make some mental adjustments to continue his success Down Under.

“I think the adjustment is upstairs,” said Lara, pointing towards his head when asked if the Indian opener will have to make any adjustments.

“The adjustment is your ability to back your talent in whatever conditions. I say this with a pinch of salt because conditions in India have changed.

“With the IPL you’ve got international players coming. You are feeding your players a different level of competition, which is great, so I don’t think there’s much that he has to do technically,” he added.

“I just think, mentally, travelling away from home, playing against Australia on their shores is a different beast. But I believe that the Indian team that I’ve seen going to Australia over the last couple of occasions, are very capable of winning,” he said.

While the former West Indies captain praised India’s aggressive approach to force a result in the rain-hit Kanpur Test against Bangladesh to try and earn World Test Championship points, Lara said such an outcome is not possible every time.

“(It was) not just (about) the points. It’s a situation where India knows that they have the advantage in terms of being the better playing team against Bangladesh, and they’ve got to put themselves,” he said.

“They’ve got to give themselves the opportunity. I love the way that they went about it in such a short space of time to put Bangladesh under pressure. The performance by India with the bat was always to put Bangladesh under pressure.” “Test cricket is about attrition. Not every single day you’re going to have 2-3 days washed out. I want to see a lot of games going into the fourth and the fifth day. I want to see batters holding on, battling if they have to battle. Bowlers being as disciplined as possible.” “That Test match was a Test match where India felt that they have an opportunity to win. But it’s not going to happen that way all the time,” said Lara.

File photo of Brian Lara© X (formerly Twitter)

Two of the finest batters of all time, India great Sachin Tendulkar and West Indies legend Brian Lara broke several records during their playing days, and many of them still stand till date. While Tendulkar is the all-time leading run-scorer in both Tests (15,921) and ODIs (18,426), Lara holds the record for the highest score by a batter in Tests (400) and First Class Cricket (501). While Lara has always been a huge admirer of Tendulkar, and vice-versa, the former West Indies has named a player who he thinks was even more naturally gifted than him and the ‘Master Blaster’.

Lara said that in terms for raw talent, his former teammate Carl Hooper was the best player he has ever seen.

“Carl was easily one of the best players I’ve ever seen. I would say that not even Tendulkar and myself would come close to that talent. Separate Carl’s career from playing to captaining and his numbers are very different. As a captain he averaged near to 50, so he enjoyed the responsibility. It’s sad that only as a captain did he fulfil his true potential,” Lara wrote in his new book, as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.

Lara even mentioned that legendary West Indies batter Vivian Richard loved Hooper than him, even though he didn’t want either to be better than him.

Now listen, it needs to be said that Viv Richards never cried down on a person because he didn’t want them to be great like him. His sternness was who he was, but he never wanted you not to do well. It was just how he was. And look, Viv loved Carl. Much more than he loved me, that’s for sure. But the way Viv shows love didn’t resonate with Carl.

Recently, Lara picked two players each from England and India who can break his record of 400 runs in a Test innings.

“There were players in my time who challenged, or at least went past the 300 mark – Virender Sehwag, Chris Gayle, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Sanath Jayasuriya. They were pretty much aggressive players,” Lara told The Daily Mail.

“How many aggressive players do you have playing today? Especially in the England team. Zak Crawley and Harry Brook. Maybe in the Indian team? Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill. If they find the right situation, the records could be broken – both of them,” he added.

Former Indian cricket team spinner Harbhajan Singh did not include both Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma while picking the top three batters in the world. The top pick for the cricketer, who won the 2007 T20 World Cup as well as the 2011 ODI World Cup, was the legendary Sachin Tendulkar. He also named former South Africa all-rounder Jacques Kallis and West Indies great Brian Lara as his other two options. In a video that has gone viral on social media, Harbhajan was asked to choose the top three batters in the world and he went for three legendary options rather than any player who are currently playing the game.

Former Indian cricket team batter Robin Uthappa also did not include Rohit and Virat as he went with Sir Vivian Richards, Tendulkar and Lara as his three options.

Former Australia captain Aaron Finch also picked Tendulkar and Lara with his third choice being the legendary Australia cricket team captain Ricky Ponting.

“Obviously, Sachin, the record that he had over… Ricky Ponting for the impact that he had on Australian cricket, Brian Lara, just the sheer entertaining value,” Finch said.

However, former India all-rounder Suresh Raina included both Rohit and Virat in his Top 3 along with England cricketer Joe Root.

Earlier, Harbhajan Singh congratulated Gautam Gambhir on his new innings as the Team India head coach.

“I am sure that your experience, energy, passion, aggression and talent will steer the team on the path of excellence. My best wishes to you. Good luck buddy,” wrote Harbhajan.

Anil Kumble commented: “Congratulations Gautam Gambhir. Wishing you the best!” Former Indian batter Robin Uthappa who was his opening partner in their 2014-IPL title winning campaign, also chipped in with a congratulatory message.

“Congratulations bro!! Can’t wait to see the men’s team flourish under your able guidance. Wishing you the best for the new role. Lots of love!!” Uthappa posted on X.

Test stalwart Cheteshwar Pujara wrote, “Congratulations and best wishes Gauti bhai!”

(With PTI inputs)

From an unbeaten 501 in a County match, to 400 not out in a single innings of a Test match, Brian Lara pulled off some incredible records during his playing career. Lara broke the record for must runs by a batter in a single innings of Test match not once, but twice. In 1994, he overtook compatriot Gary Sobers’ 365 and scored 375 against England at St. John’s. The record was broken 10 years later when Matthew Hayden smashed 385 against Zimbabwe.

However, Lara didn’t let it slide this time as he smashed an unbeaten 400 against England at the same venue where he overtook Sobers in the first place. 

Now, 20 years down the road, Lara’s record still remains intact. In fact, the last batter to even cross 350 was Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene, who scored 374 against South Africa in 2006.

However, Lara admitted that a few players from the current generation are capable enough to break his record. Lara picked two players each from England and India that can surpass his momentous feat.

“There were players in my time who challenged, or at least went past the 300 mark – Virender Sehwag, Chris Gayle, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Sanath Jayasuriya. They were pretty much aggressive players,” Lara told The Daily Mail.

“How many aggressive players do you have playing today? Especially in the England team. Zak Crawley and Harry Brook. Maybe in the Indian team? Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill. If they find the right situation, the records could be broken – both of them,” he added.

Speaking on what inspired him to break the record twice, Lara suggested: “I fell in love with being that spectacle, reducing the opposition’s options, seeing them pretty much flat. I made that my forte – when I knew a team was down, I wasn’t going to give it away. I was going to take advantage of the situation. That was 375, 400, 501. It was very similar attitude to that of West Indies’ great bowlers. When you have a red ball in your hand and are bowling at 90 miles an hour, you know guys are going to be scared.”