Editing Brian Lara (section)

===Early first-class career===
[[File:Brian Lara (4610977063).jpg|thumb|right|Lara batting for [[Warwickshire County Cricket Club|Warwickshire]] in 1994]]
1987 was a breakthrough year for Lara, when in the West Indies Youth Championships he scored 498 runs breaking the record of 480 by [[Carl Hooper]] set the previous year.<ref>[http://www.nalis.gov.tt/Biography%5Cbio_BrianLara_captaincy.html ''The Coming Foretold''] [[The Independent]]. Retrieved 30 July 2007. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070811094615/http://www.nalis.gov.tt/Biography%5Cbio_BrianLara_captaincy.html |date=11 August 2007 }}</ref> He captained the tournament-winning [[Trinidad and Tobago national cricket team|Trinidad and Tobago]], who profited from a match-winning 116 from Lara.

In January 1988, Lara made his first-class debut for Trinidad and Tobago in the [[Red Stripe Cup]] against [[Leeward Islands cricket team|Leeward Islands]].<ref name="FC-debut">{{cite web |url=https://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/149734.html |title=Brief but brutal |date=22 January 2008 |access-date=18 April 2020 |publisher=ESPNcricinfo}}</ref> In his second first-class match he made 92 against a [[Barbados national cricket team|Barbados]] attack containing [[Joel Garner]] and [[Malcolm Marshall]], two greats of [[West Indies cricket team|West Indies]] teams.<ref name="FC-debut"/> Later in the same year, he captained the West Indies team in Australia for the Bicentennial Youth World Cup where the West Indies reached the semi-finals. Later that year, his innings of 182 as captain of the West Indies Under-23s against the [[Indian cricket team in the West Indies in 1988–89|touring Indian team]] further elevated his reputation.

His first selection for the full West Indies team followed in due course, but unfortunately coincided with the death of his father and Lara withdrew from the team. In 1989, he captained a West Indies B Team in [[Zimbabwe]] and scored 145.

In 1990, at the age of 20, Lara became Trinidad and Tobago's youngest-ever captain, leading them that season to victory in the one-day [[Geddes Grant Shield]]. It was also in 1990 that he made his belated Test debut for West Indies against [[Pakistan national cricket team|Pakistan]], scoring 44 and 5. He had made his ODI debut a month earlier against Pakistan, scoring 11.