Stats: Revealing some interesting facts about Brian Lara

Lara outscored his contemporaries during his career tenure from 1990 to 2006, including Tendulkar

Arguably one of the greatest batsmen of the modern era, former West Indian captain Brian Lara specialized in piling up huge scores. Right from his innings of 277 vs Australia at Sydney in 1993, the signs were ominous that world cricket was going to witness one of the greatest and talismanic run accumulators of all time.

By the time he retired, he had set the world record twice for the highest individual score in a test innings- the 375 vs England at St. Johns in 1994 was surpassed by Matthew Hayden’s innings of 380 but Lara took back what was rightfully his with an even more astounding 400 against the same opposition at the same venue in 2004.

Interestingly, he also happens to the only player to score more than 500 runs in a single inning in first-class cricket scoring 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham at Birmingham in 1994. Hence, he tops the lists of highest scorers in both Test and First class cricket.

It’s not just the number of runs scored for which Lara is considered one of the greatest; it’s perhaps more to do with how he carried his team over their most difficult period. Lara's contribution to his side's victories have been 24.50% of his total Test runs (11953) and eight of his 34 Test hundreds (23.52 %) have guided West Indies to victory.

As mentioned above, he also happened to play in a time when the West Indies cricket team was struggling in its performance and thus received minimal support from his teammates. The next best batsmen have totaled just 47.6% of Lara's aggregate, thus making him the only one of 6 legends to outscore the best of his teammates by more than 50%. His overall runs contribution to his team total is a reasonably high 19%. Most other batsmen contribute between 15 and 17%.

Lara also top-scored in 28.0% of the innings he played in, which is the highest amongst all batsmen since 1990. He is also known for many iconic innings throughout his illustrious career. His greatest achievement probably lies in the way he turned the fate of the 1999 Frank Worrell trophy. West Indies were down and out after the first 2 Test matches before Lara, with scores of 213 and 153 not out, single-handedly turned the tide and won consecutive matches for his country.

In the 3rd Test at Barbados, West Indies were precariously placed at 104-5, chasing 308 on a broken wicket. Lara, displaying the skill of a surgeon performing a successful operation on a patient considered incurable scored 153 not out and took his team home by the slenderest margin of 1 wicket.

Lara's nine double-hundreds are only behind Bradman and Sangakkara’s tally of 12 & 11 double-hundreds respectively. He averages 52.88 with 34 centuries in his 232 Test innings and scored 11953 runs, the highest during his career tenure i.e., from 1990 to 2006 (outscoring Sachin who scored 9881 runs).