RCA thrilled over Lara’s visit

Rwanda Cricket Association (RCA) officials can’t hold back their excitement about the forthcoming visit of Brian Lara, one of the finest cricketers of all time. Lara, a native of Trinidad and Tobago and former captain of the West Indies is expected to make a maiden tour of East Africa between June 6 -13. “It’s a great honour that he is coming over. I’m sure he will be a great inspiration to Rwanda’s young cricketers,” RCA’s Administrative Officer, Robert Mugisha said. Lara will start his tour in Uganda where he is expected to meet the country’s President Yoweri Museveni and some of his cabinet ministers. While in Uganda, he is expected to hold interactive sessions with Uganda’s national cricketers among other things before crossing to Rwanda on June 9. While in Kigali, the legendary cricketer is scheduled to pay a courtesy call to President Paul Kagame, the Minister of Sports and Culture Joseph Habineza and other government dignitaries. He will also visit one of the cricketing schools in Kigali before presiding over a Twenty20 match between a select Uganda XI and Rwanda. Until 2007 when he retired, Lara eclipsed several records and landmarks in the sport. To-date, he has the highest individual score in both first-class cricket (501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham in 1994) and Test cricket (400 not out for the West Indies against England in 2004). Remarkably, he is the only batsman to have ever scored a hundred, a double century, a triple century, a quadruple century and a quintuple century in first class games over the course of a senior career. The left hander also holds the test record of scoring most number of runs in a single over, when he scored 28 runs off an over by Robin Peterson of South Africa in 2003. On 16 December 2006, he became the first player for the West Indies origin to pass 10,000 One Day International runs along with India’s Sachin Tendulkar, the only two players to do so in both forms of the game. After the 2007 World Cup and shortly before his retirement, Australia’s Glenn McGrath-one of the game’s legendary bowlers stated that Lara was the greatest batsman that he had ever bowled to. Ends

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RCA thrilled over Lara’s visit