Brian Lara and Viv Richards are among the greatest cricketers of all time. The duo played more than 100 matches for the West Indies team in both the Test and ODI formats of the game and were considered players who were well ahead of their time. Richards was part of the West Indies team from 1974 to 1991, and Lara represented the Men in Maroon from 1990 to 2007. During his early days in international cricket, Lara got a chance to share the dressing room with Richards’ and he was over the moon when he learnt about the opportunity of being in the same team as his hero. But Lara’s first meeting with the Master Blaster wasn’t like the one he had imagined. The left-handed batter opened up about his first encounter with Richards on the Stick to Cricket podcast and recalled how Viv was not very kind to him. “I got an opportunity to play with him (Richards). My first Test match was in Trinidad, and I got the letter from the board: “You’re on the team. Report at 9 AM tomorrow morning for practice”,” Lara said. “And I got there at 8 AM, started a little practice in the Queen’s Park Oval with my brother, and then the team arrived. And these are all my heroes—Viv (Richards), (Gordon) Greenidge, (Desmond) Haynes, Malcolm Marshall, everybody, all the big boys—and they went into the dressing room. Tiny dressing room in those days, and I said to my brother, “It’s time I go say hello to my teammates.” “I spent the first five days in the bathroom.” ? Brian Lara on sharing a dressing room with his idol Sir Vivian Richards 🤩 pic.twitter.com/lgt2R0h9yK — Stick to Cricket (@StickToCricket) July 16, 2025 “And while I was walking to the dressing room, my cricket bag came flying out of the dressing room and spat everything just all over the place. I picked it up, packed it back, and walked back into the dressing room. And where I placed my bag is where Sir Vivian placed his bag. So I spent the first 5 days of my Test career in the bathroom,” Lara said. Lara played only one international match (ODI) for the West Indies with Richards’ and in that game (vs. England at Lord’s on May 27, 1991), he added 20 runs with him for the fourth wicket.