Judg­ing by his re­cent award, as far as crick­et-lov­ing In­dia is con­cerned, Bri­an Lara is a role mod­el who pro­vides an ex­am­ple of some­one who re­fused to be lim­it­ed.

It's al­ways im­por­tant dur­ing dif­fi­cult times to seek in­spi­ra­tion and as­pi­ra­tion. We are very for­tu­nate that we can look at the sto­ry of Bri­an Lara, if we choose to do so, to find a liv­ing ex­am­ple of some­one who set hori­zons and re­de­fined what crick­et great­ness can look like.

The crick­et leg­end was ho­n­oured with a life­time achieve­ment award dur­ing the 2025 CEAT Crick­et Awards in Mum­bai, In­dia, last Tues­day.

The 56-year-old Lara, who holds the world record for the high­est in­di­vid­ual Test match score of 400 not out, was pre­sent­ed with the award by In­di­an leg­end Sunil Gavaskar.

“Some ca­reers set records; a few set hori­zons. We ho­n­our Bri­an Lara with the CEAT Life­time Achieve­ment Award—a salute to craft, charis­ma, and a lega­cy that con­tin­ues to guide how great­ness is imag­ined,” the CEAT post said.

The words: "Some ca­reers set records; a few set hori­zons", re­al­ly res­onat­ed with me. It says an awe­some lot about Bri­an Lara's lega­cy. The thought struck me that it would be amaz­ing if those same words can be adopt­ed to de­scribe the con­tri­bu­tions of our na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions, sport lead­ers.

Lead­ers not on­ly in sports but al­so in a pe­ri­od. Some ca­reers set records; a few set hori­zons. Think­ing about those words took me down the rab­bit hole of thought lead­er­ship sur­round­ing the com­ing fi­nan­cial storm fac­ing sport in Trinidad and To­ba­go, fol­low­ing the read­ing of the na­tion­al bud­get yes­ter­day. And the im­por­tance of think­ing that sets hori­zons.

How many sports or­gan­i­sa­tions and na­tion­al gov­ern­ing bod­ies have giv­en deep strate­gic thought about how they will weath­er the fi­nan­cial storm?

How many sports or­gan­i­sa­tions can say they are: (1) mar­ket-ob­sessed in their ap­proach to com­mu­ni­ca­tion and try to stay ahead of the lat­est trends and evolv­ing needs of their stake­hold­er base in an ef­fort to cre­ate new rev­enue streams? (2) ob­sessed about build­ing a cul­ture that leans in­to the fu­ture and lever­ages the trust that has been built over decades. (3) How many are brave enough to dis­rupt them­selves?

Giv­en that Lead­er­ship is about in­spir­ing a group of in­di­vid­u­als to cre­ate and achieve ex­tra­or­di­nary things, to have a big, bold vi­sion, a very clear mis­sion that every­body can ral­ly be­hind, plus find­ing the right peo­ple who have a burn­ing de­sire to set hori­zons.

Do we be­lieve in set­ting hori­zons or do we be­lieve it is a leap of faith that is un­re­al­is­tic?

Or is it as sim­ple as see­ing what CEAT saw in Lara be­yond his records. Not just that he sets hori­zons but al­so pro­vides a guide as to how great­ness is imag­ined.

From child­hood, Lara imag­ined him­self a crick­eter des­tined for world ac­claim. He once told the Caribbean me­dia that his goal was “to be one of the best bats­men of the 90s, and the best go­ing in­to the 21st cen­tu­ry.”

In his book "Beat­ing the Field", Lara said: "When the oth­ers grew tired and went home and there was no one else to play with. I used to play my own Test match­es on the porch of our house, us­ing a broom han­dle or a stick as the bat and a mar­ble as the ball. I would arrange the pot plants to rep­re­sent field­ers and try to find the gaps as I played my shots."

Two things stand out: dis­ci­pline and the be­lief to dream big.