Lara’s Lady

BRIAN LARA, double record-holder and one of cricket’s top ‘pop’ idols is betrothed to a charming fellow- Trinidadian. Gautam Bhattacharya meet her

LEASEL ROUEDAS hails from Trinidad. Her home is a few kilometers’ drive from the Port-of-Spain Oval and she even claims that she knows a few Indians. She hadn’t heard of Sunil Gavaskar: ‘I hardly follow cricket,’ She claims, defend-ing her lack of knowledge. But then I mention another Bombayite’s name and she exclaims, ‘Oh yeah, Tendulkar, I’ve heard a lot about him.’

Even though the question is rhetorical, one cannot help but ask how. ‘You know, he (Lara) keeps talking about him. Sachin did this, Sachin did that! ’ She hastens to add that her steady boyfriend and husband-to-be speaks in glowing terms about Sachin: ‘I remember Brian telling me that “people call me the number one batsman in the world, but Tendulkar is a tremendous player too.” According to Brian, he is his real competitor.’


Leasel Rouedas the fiancee of West Indian
master batsman Brian Lara



Brian Lara: no need now for a
little black book, so consentrates
on a little yellow one
That’s Leasel for you. Short, round-faced, curly-haired and always armed with a smile on her face. She has no starry airs about her. She is much too vivacious for that. Her charm is so great that even after half-an-hour of interviewing her, I completely forget to take down her surname. But I do not attribute it to a major professional blunder, because, in any case, her surname is going to change within a couple of years. The fact is that Leasel Rouedas is betrothed to one Brian Charles Lara, and will be married to him after she finished her fashion-design course.

Leasel’s personality is in sharp contrast to her boyfriend’s high-profile image. She is just the plain girl next door, and she wants her husband to remain as down-to-earth as he is presently.

I told him the other day. ‘she confides, ‘that “Brian, you are turning down so many request for interviews. I can see your point; that it is impossible to satisfy their hunger. But when you say ‘No’, say that politely please. Then at least they will remember you as a decent human being and not as an arrogant brat.”


At the same time, she tells you that what Lara is going through, in these post-world-record days, is not exactly anybody’s idea of having fun.

‘You know, back home, it’s different.’ she testifies. ‘They all know who he is. They respect him for that. There are times when even complete strangers walk up to him and say, “Hello, Brian, well done!” But they don’t bother him. He never gets mobbed in Trinidad or, for that matter, in any other West Indian Island. That was why he was so much at sea in England last summer and India, trying to ward off people’s attention. You cannot imagine the kind of intrusions people make in his private life. At the same time, he is under a ‘lot of pressure to perform consistently.’
Leasel, who after completing her studies, worked for a brief while in a local bank.