"Records don’t mean anything to me." It was strange to hear such a statement from Brian Lara, a man who has set the benchmark for international excellence on so many occasions and who walked away from the game a year ago with most of them still intact.

The world record-holder was speaking during the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board-hosted function held in his honour on Sunday night at Hilton Trinidad, St Ann’s.

"(I had) one more match to 300, forty-something more runs to 12,000, Tendulkar was just around the corner in hundreds," went Lara’s rationale. "I was lucky to have achieved so much individually and very unlucky not to achieve much as a team."

The former West Indies batsman and captain delivered a moving and philosophical look at his career, and the many moments and people that helped shape him into the player he became.

Those included Sir Garfield Sobers, Clive Lloyd and Joey Carew and family, among many others.

"It’s been great playing cricket for you," he further explained his statement. "That’s why I played the game. I played to entertain. I played the game for the people of the Caribbean, I played the game for the fact that it put the smiles on the guys (fans) faces."

And 38-year-old Lara, who has been out of action since suffering a fractured arm in January against the Leeward Islands, revealed that there was no "clandestine" plot to eject him from the West Indies team when he retired last year.

"I left of my own volition. I’ve enjoyed playing (cricket) for the West Indies and I just thought it was time the West Indies team moved on under a new leader," he said, pointing out that there was a considerable generation gap in the team.

The events leading up to the disastrous tour of South Africa in 1998, when West Indies lost all five Tests, were described by Lara as the lowest point of his career.

"That was definitely my lowest period and something that I definitely regret, and I wished that both parties could have handled it a lot better," he revealed, referring to the dispute between the players and the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) just days before the tour started.

Ironically, it was the subsequent home Test series against Australia he deemed his high point, when he was placed on probation for two Tests as West Indies captain by the WICB, with a "hostile" Jamaican crowd looking on.

"...This was actually the highest point of my career," Lara stated. "I’ve always said that 153 (not out against Australia at Kensington Oval in Barbados) was not my best score. (The) 213 (in Jamaica) the week before that against Australia was definitely the best I’ve ever batted under the circumstances."

Lara described his poor returns as West Indies captain a "major hurt for me" and lauded the current Windies team for their recent Test win and subsequent One Day International series triumph over Sri Lanka at the Queen’s Park Oval last week.

"...It’s also important to congratulate the West Indies on their wonderful performance. I think to actually win it in Trinidad in front of us was special. The Test match and the two one-dayers was special."

He added: "What I do hope, though, is that they pick up some momentum and crush Sri Lanka and show their dominance in the last One Day International in preparation for the tough series against Australia."

And Lara was happy to have contributed to West Indies cricket for 17 years.

"I created hope, maybe hope that was unfounded...impossible, but I created hope when there was none. I tried my best to teach all the young players I played with what international cricket is all about, what West Indies cricket is all about.

"...Of course, I would have loved to walk on a cricket field with Sir Garfield Sobers, or behind Clive Lloyd or Sir Frank Worrell, but I believe my period was the 1990s, the early 21st century, and I wouldn’t give that up for anything."