West In­dies crick­et leg­end Bri­an Lara net­ted from the penal­ty spot in a win­ning ef­fort for the Rest of the World over Eng­land's soc­cer team yes­ter­day at Old Traf­ford. Lara's ex­ploits on the crick­et field are well known, but he once wore na­tion­al colours at the ju­nior lev­el for his na­tive T&T. The bat­ting leg­end po­liced the mid­field along with in­ter­na­tion­al stars Zine­dine Zi­dane, Luis Fi­go, Ryan Gig­gs, Hein­rik Lar­son, and Sam­mi Hyp­pia in a hold­ing role in the cen­tre of the park.

A spir­it­ed sec­ond-half per­for­mance saw the Rest of the World over­come a two-goal deficit against the likes of for­mer Eng­land greats Alan Shear­er, Ted­dy Sher­ring­ham, and Nicky Butt, as both teams used past task mas­ters with a heavy mix of celebri­ties. Lara slipped a de­light­ful through ball that split the tir­ing Eng­land back­line late in the con­test, but the re­tired Swedish in­ter­na­tion­al Lar­son did not do jus­tice to the qual­i­ty ball send­ing the game in­to the dread­ed shoot-out.

With the for­mer in­ter­na­tion­als barred from spot-kick­ing, the celebri­ties were en­trust­ed with the oner­ous task. Lara showed why he wore T&T colours with his close friend Dwight Yorke, when he opened the pro­ceed­ings with a crisply slot­ted penal­ty in­to the onion bags for the Rest of the World. There were saves and miss­es, af­ter the for­mer West In­dies cap­tain's strike, send­ing the shooto-ut to sud­den death.

Woody Har­rel­son of "Cheers" and "White Men Can't Jump" fame sealed the Rest of the World tri­umph, as he thumped in the de­cider with great aplomb, even though he ini­tial­ly was un­aware of the lo­ca­tion of the penal­ty spot. The Soc­ceraid char­i­ty match is held every two years, and the pro­ceeds go to UNICEF, and yes­ter­day's match raised over 1.5 mil­lion pounds ster­ling. (CMC)