West Indies batting legend Brian Lara considers his former teammate and captain Carl Hooper as a richly talented batter whose failure to justify the potential saddens him even today. Lara even claims that Hooper was more gifted than him and India batting legend Sachin Tendulkar.
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“Carl was easily one of the best players I’ve ever seen,” Lara writes in his book ‘Lara: The England Chronicles‘. “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.”
Hooper played 102 Tests for West Indies and scored 5762 runs at 36.46 including 13 centuries and 27 fifties. In 227 ODIs, he scored 5761 runs at 35.34.
As captain, he scored 1609 runs in Tests at an average of 45.97. He struck four centuries and nine half-centuries.
Lara said Hooper’s century against England during the Lord’s Test of 1991 left everyone in awe.
“When I think back to that Lord’s match I see the class of Carl Hooper. Man, what a player. The ease in which he batted brought out a kind of awe in us, and in all of us, even the senior players. You felt that when Carl went out to bat, they enjoyed it – Haynes, Richards, Greenidge, all these guys would stop what they were doing just to watch him,” Lara said.
Lara though cannot pinpoint why Hooper didn’t d0 justice to his talent.
“He was so talented, yet he didn’t understand just how good he was. People would ask why he didn’t do full justice to his brilliance, and you know what, there is no clear reason for it,” Lara said.
Lara, the holder of the highest individual score in Test history, also touches upon how intimidated the players felt in the company of the legendary Viv Richards and how it could have impacted Hooper.
“….Viv used to make me cry every three weeks, but he would make Carl cry once a week. Viv’s tone of voice is intimidating and if you’re not strong enough, you can take that personally and be affected by it. Me, I was never really affected by it. In a way I welcomed it, because I was so much under his arm that I knew abuse was coming and I was a strong personality. Carl? I know for a fact that Carl shied away from Viv Richards,” Lara said.
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