West Indian captain and all-time great Brian Lara will be playing his last one-day international today against Bangladesh. In an illustrious career spanning 16 years, Lara has been the standout player for the West Indies through their worst phase. But at 37, he isn’t exactly young and the West Indies doesn’t seem to have made too much progress since he entered the team as a youngster.

The bowling is just as undisciplined and the batting uncertain. Chris Gayle, who was hoping for a better outing at home, let himself and the team down regularly and as a result, it was Brian Lara who had to come out and try to save the team throughout the tournament. But sooner or later, he too, was bound to fail. And once that happened, the West Indies challenge was nothing more than a mirage.

Brian Lara can be accused, if anything, of perhaps not taking on as much responsibility as he should have by coming up higher in the batting order and asking the rest of the batsmen to rally round him. But there was always the risk that he would get out early and expose the rest of the batting. It wasn’t an easy decision and he could have been accused either ways. In the end, one has to say he did what he thought was best… it just didn’t work.

One thing that Lara cannot be accused of, however, is trying to bring quality youngsters into the side. While he may not be able to take credit for all youngsters who have made it to the team, he certainly deserves credit for showing confidence in them and trying to make world-class players out of them. Beyond a point, though, even he can’t do much. The real shortcoming of West Indies cricket has been a lack of confidence and no matter how many youngsters they blood, they don’t think or look like they could win.

Lara himself, unfortunately, hasn’t won as much as he deserves. Individual records aside, he hasn’t tasted much success that lesser players in better teams have. With his last appearance coming up today, he would like to finish with a win.

Thankfully, we would be able to see Lara bat in Tests for a while longer, but this will be his final ODI salvo. A great player would be missed and unfortunately, he leaves no legacy to speak of either. G’bye Brian!