For­mer West In­dies crick­et cap­tain and bat­ting hero Bri­an Charles Lara, dubbed "the Prince of Port-of-Spain", is be­ing im­mor­talised in bronze on the prom­e­nade in Port-of-Spain bear­ing his name. The stat­ue would be placed as a fo­cal fea­ture at the west end of the prom­e­nade in clear view of passers-by on Wright­son Road. The un­veil­ing of the stat­ue would take place over the week­end, a spokesman said yes­ter­day. Lara is poised on top of the world, crick­et bat in hand, hav­ing just de­liv­ered one of his mas­ter­ful crick­et strokes. Lara holds the record for the high­est in­di­vid­ual score in first-class crick­et: 501 not out.

He is the on­ly bats­man to have ever scored a cen­tu­ry, a dou­ble cen­tu­ry, a triple cen­tu­ry, a quadru­ple cen­tu­ry and a quin­tu­ple cen­tu­ry in first-class games.The stat­ue de­sign was con­cep­tu­alised in 2006 by the Prom­e­nade Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion and Eye Scream An­i­ma­tion Ltd. Lara de­cid­ed on the stance and ap­proved a 360-de­gree set of pho­tographs for use in the stat­ue fab­ri­ca­tion. Con­sul­tant land­scape ar­chi­tect, David Smith, was ap­point­ed to ex­plore op­por­tu­ni­ties for beau­ti­fi­ca­tion around In­de­pen­dence Square. The Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment ap­proved the strat­e­gy and pro­vid­ed fund­ing for the project.