Bermuda?s arrival on the international cricket stage hasn?t gone unnoticed ? at least not by two-time world record holder Brian Lara. recently caught up with the legendary West Indies batsman as he trained with his native Trinidad at Guaracara Park on the eve of the side?s Carib Challenge final against Barbados. Trinidad won the five-day final by 125 runs to become the first Caribbean island ever to make a clean sweep of regional honours in a single season.

?I love Bermuda and it?s great to see them in the World Cup,? said Lara. ?I think it?s going to be a great event in the West Indies and to have an Island floating around in the Atlantic Ocean able to qualify is tremendous.?

?It?s a very small population and very small land space and so I have to wish them well. It?s going to be tough . . . but I think the experience is going to be great for them,? added the man who surpassed Sir Garfield Sobers? Test batting record of 365 against England in Antigua in 1994.

Lara reclaimed that record with an unbeaten 400 in 2004 against England again in Antigua after Australian Matthew Hayden (380) had bettered his 375 in 2003.

The prolific run scorer toured Bermuda in 2003 and again in 2004 with the West Indies.

?Bermuda is a lovely place and I remember organising a trip there with the West Indies team and it was a great experience playing there for the first time,? he said. ?I remember getting in touch with the West Indies Cricket Board and telling them Bermuda was a wonderful place.?

Windies toured Bermuda in September, 2004, when they stepped up their preparations for the ICC Champions Trophy Tournament in England. Lara led the Caribbean team to victory over England in the final.

He captained the West Indies from 1997 to ?99 and was re-appointed as skipper in 2003.

?I think being in such an atmosphere was sort of a catalyst for us going on to play well as a team,? recalled Lara. ?We had a gap after the Test series with England and they (WICB) were wondering what to do with the guys during that period and we got together in Bermuda.

?Unfortunately the facilities for batting were not that great but the guys enjoyed their stay and we did a lot of gelling and a lot of team work and went onto to win the ICC Champions Trophy which was great having been in such an atmosphere in a beautiful Island.?

If all goes according to plan, the 36-year-old left-hander hopes to return later this summer to take in a Counties match in the East End.

?The atmosphere there is amazing and one I haven?t seen anywhere in the Caribbean at that level of cricket,? said Lara, scorer of eight double Test centuries. Only Australian Sir Donald Bradman and Lara have scored multiple triple centuries in Test cricket.

Lara, meanwhile, had praise for fellow Trinidadian and Bermuda national coach Gus Logie.

?Logie and myself were together as players in the West Indies team when I first started,? he said. ?And as a fellow Trinidadian and someone who has great experience he played a very important part in nurturing me during my apprenticeship period.

?Gus went onto to actually coach the West Indies in that ICC tournament (Champions Trophy) and I also spent a couple of years as captain (of the West Indies) with him. He is someone who has great belief in empowerment and allows the guys to be themselves. And I think he will be very good for Bermuda?s cricketers.

?Having someone with that sort of experience ? someone who has actually won a title as a coach ? he is going to do the best that he can with the team that he has.?

In 1990 former Australian off-spinner Greg Matthews nicknamed Lara the ?Prince? of Port of Spain ? a name that appears to have stuck.

?I was just a member of the West Indies team at the time and really was not playing and I think maybe the name just happened to fit at the time,? he recalled. ?Viv Richards was the King and so they needed somebody to call the Prince and I was lucky enough to be labelled that.?

During his childhood in Santa Cruz, Trinidad, Lara was a big fan of West Indies? legends Gordon Greenidge, Ray Fredericks and Richards.

His ascent in the game began at Harvard Coaching Clinic where he would be taught proper batting technique at the tender age of six.

According to Trinidadian legend, Lara?s batting ability derived from practising hours on end facing a marble with a mop handle.

He?s scored 11,294 runs in Test cricket, the highest run-getter of all time after surpassing previous record holder Allan Border last November.

The gifted player has also scored 9,359 runs in One-Day Internationals (ODI) and also holds the record for the highest first class innings ? an unbeaten 501 for Warwickshire in England in 1994. He also holds the record for the most runs (28) scored off a single Test over.

So how does he feel about reclaiming the world record?

?It?s just a great feeling to do it and a great feeling for any player to regain it after losing it six months before that,? he said.

?But if you were to ask me what was the highlight of my cricket career, I think it would have to be the ICC (Champions Trophy) win in 2004 in England against England and our 418 run chase in Antigua against Australia in 2003.

?These are things that will surpass any other achievement.?

As for his country?s dominance of regional cricket, Lara said: ?I think it?s tremendous but what is also important is that Trinidad and Tobago is going to do very well in the coming years in the regional tournaments.

?Looking at the bunch of young players that we have here ? led by Daren Ganga, Dwayne Bravo and the likes of young Jason Mohammed ? we have the talent to go on to win more trophies.?

The West Indies? Test team presently boast four Trinidadians in Ganga, Bravo, Denesh Ramdin and Lara ? with several promising cricketers on the fringe of making either the West Indies Test or ODI squads.

Ganga, recently recalled to the Test team, struck a whirlwind 161 during the Carib Challenge semi-final against Windward Islands earlier this month while 19-year-old Mohammed followed up with a classy unbeaten 124 at Guaracara Park.

And it is players such as young Mohammed who Lara believes will carry the torch for Trinidad and the West Indies in years to come.

?It is great to see some of the guys elevated to the senior team,? he said. ?Ganga seems to have come of age while Dwayne (Bravo) is a very important part of West Indies cricket.

?So we have representatives at the highest level, but what I think is more important is that we also have the reserves and guys that are capable of toppling players in the West Indies team.?

In March of last year, Lara, along with six other senior players, was dropped from the West Indies team over their personal Cable and Wireless sponsorship deals which clashed with the Board?s primary sponsor, Digicel.

The issue was eventually resolved and Lara returned to the Test arena but in the process lost the captaincy indefinitely to Shivnarine Chanderpaul who has since resigned and been replaced by Ramnaresh Sarwan.