NASSAU, Bahamas - Retired West Indies batting great Brian Lara is among four regional stalwarts to receive the Order of the Caribbean Community.
Lara, who holds the batting world record for the highest individual scores Test (400 not out) and First-Class (501 not out), was named for the honour, along with Professor Rex Nettleford, Dr Nicholas Joseph Orville Liverpool and the Honourable George Lamming.
CARICOM made the announcement as regional leaders wrapped up their 19th Inter-sessional meeting Saturday evening.
CARICOM said the "Heads of Government considered the nominees for the Sixth Conferment of the Order of the Caribbean Community and agreed" on the names of outstanding Caribbean citizens to be awarded the honour.
"The conferment of these awards will take place at the Twenty-Ninth Regular Meeting to be held in July 2008 in Antigua and Barbuda," CARICOM stated.
Lara, 38, retired from international cricket last year April after the West Indies' exit from the ICC Cricket World Cup (CWC) in the Caribbean, bringing to an end a fine career that elevated him to the level of an all-time great.
He finished his career with 11, 953 Test runs, at the moment still the highest aggregate in the history of the game.
Lara made his debut in international cricket for the West Indies in November 1990 in a One-Day International (ODI) against Pakistan. He played 131 Test matches and 299 ODIs.
In Test cricket, he gathered 34 Test hundreds, while he recorded 19 centuries in ODIs, scoring 10,405 runs in the shorter version of the game.
He was Wisden Cricketer of the year in 1995, the year after he had claimed both individual world records in batting.
During the CARICOM summit, the regional leaders also expressed delight at the multi-million dollar profit attained by the CWC last year and praised the chief organisers.
"Heads of Government noted with pleasure that the Cricket World Cup 2007 Inc., the company established by the West Indies Cricket Board to run the International Cricket Council Cricket World Cup held in the Caribbean in 2007, has declared a profit of US $53 million.
"Heads of Government commended the Chairman of the company, Mr Kenneth Gordon, the Board and the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Chris Dehring for their leadership of this memorable sporting event," CARICOM stated in its Communique.
CARICOM also said is supported the need for "dissemination and a wide discussion" of the Report on Governance of the West Indies Cricket issued by a committee headed by the Most Honourable Percival Patterson.
