``My vision is of Brian Charles Lara leading the West Indies cricket team into the 21st century,'' said Windies national team manager Clive Lloyd. ``I am proud to be part of a team that has Brian Lara as vice captain. And I have no hesitation in saying that he will be the one who leads West Indies cricket into the next century.''

Sunil Manohar Gavaskar, for his part, preferred to focus on the occasions when he had personally witnessed the West Indies star perform. ``My first sight of him was in 1989,'' the Indian master batsman recalled. ``Just as I was about to move out of the hotel and was in the process of organising my luggage, this young man came up and introduced himself. 'I am Brian', he said. I sighted him again in the West Indies dressing room, and asked Viv (Richards) who he was. 'That is Brian,' Richards told me then. 'A marvellous player, he is going to be the world's best batsman'.''

Richards had already discovered Lara's potential, years before the young left hander was to blaze a trail across the world's cricket pitches, Gavaskar pointed out.

Former Australian skipper turned commentator Ian Chappell, for his part, spoke of his regret that he had missed Lara's recordbreaking 375 against England. ``But I watched him get 277 against Australia at Sydney, and with me that day was Sir Garfield Sobers,'' Chappell recalled. ``Sir Garfield is the greatest cricketer I have ever come across, but he is not a great cricket watcher. And yet he followed every single ball of that innings from Lara, and you don't get higher praise than that!''

The three - Gavaskar, Lloyd and Chappell - were adjudicators for the first ever Ceat International Cricketer of the Year award, and Lara himself the first recepient. The left-handed batsman, who in course of the summer of 1995 broke not only the world Test batting record set by Gary Sobers with his innings of 375 against England, but also went on to record the highest first class score in cricket history when he scored 501 against Durham, received the Maestro Trophy and a cash award of Rs 500,000.

Chappell talked about the future of world cricket, arguing that it was in very safe hands thanks to the presence of many brilliant young batsmen in the world today. ``Now we have at- tacking batsmen like Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya, Aravin- da de Silva and, of course, Brian Lara, who I feel will do even better than the others because he has the ability to hit the ball along the ground and is so good at placing the ball.''

Australian cricket writer and compere Mike Coward, emceeing the evening, presented the speakers with his own brand of knowledge and wit, while RPG head Harsh Goenka presented the trophy and the cheque to Lara.