In a heart­felt ges­ture made pos­si­ble by the gen­eros­i­ty of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, Fides Ltd & Fa­ti­ma Class of ’86, crick­et­ing leg­end Bri­an Lara re­cent­ly con­tin­ued his is­land-wide book tour to vis­it his al­ma maters to dis­trib­ute hun­dreds of copies of his mem­oir, "LARA - The Eng­land Chron­i­cles" on Tues­day.

The vis­its not on­ly marked a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in Lara’s lit­er­ary jour­ney but al­so served as a sen­ti­men­tal home­com­ing for the sport­ing icon.

Dur­ing his vis­it, Lara en­gaged with stu­dents and fac­ul­ty, shar­ing sto­ries from his il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer and the lessons he learned along the way. The mem­oir, which delves in­to his ex­pe­ri­ences play­ing crick­et from his ear­ly years right un­til the pin­na­cle of his ca­reer play­ing for the West In­dies, high­lights key mo­ments dur­ing this time play­ing against Eng­land and res­onat­ed deeply with the as­pir­ing crick­eters, and every­one in at­ten­dance.

"I am grate­ful to Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, Fides Ltd and Fa­ti­ma Class of ’86 for sup­port­ing and stand­ing along­side me as we seek to in­spire the youth of Trinidad & To­ba­go. Your con­tin­ued and stead­fast sup­port is as­sur­ance that to­geth­er we can pos­i­tive­ly im­pact as many kids as pos­si­ble," said Lara.

"It’s a priv­i­lege to give back to the in­sti­tu­tions that played a sig­nif­i­cant role in shap­ing my ca­reer. I hope my sto­ries in­spire the next gen­er­a­tion of crick­eters to chase their dreams. Each vis­it had me rem­i­nisc­ing on my won­der­ful school days: at St Joseph Boys then to San Juan Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary for one year and even­tu­al­ly to Fa­ti­ma Col­lege.

"I start­ed shaky at Fa­ti­ma but even­tu­al­ly, I buck­led down and achieved a high stan­dard of ed­u­ca­tion. It was drilled in­to my head that crick­et is on­ly go­ing to be for a short pe­ri­od of my life and my aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance now is go­ing to shape the rest of my life. This is my re­al­i­ty now and I am very thank­ful to my teach­ers in all three schools for their per­sis­tence and pa­tience"

The events were met with en­thu­si­asm from stu­dents and alum­ni alike, who lined up to meet the crick­et­ing great and re­ceive a signed copy of his mem­oir. These ini­tia­tives not on­ly cel­e­brate Lara’s achieve­ments but al­so em­pha­size the im­por­tance of ed­u­ca­tion and men­tor­ship in sports.

Lara’s mem­oir, "LARA - The Eng­land Chron­i­cles," is avail­able for pur­chase at lead­ing book­stores and on­line plat­forms, al­low­ing fans and as­pir­ing crick­eters world­wide to gain in­sights in­to the life of one of crick­et’s great­est bats­men.