Brian Lara is cricket's deepest enigma, at once a beautifully free strokemaker whose creativity captured an era, and an often tortured presence at the heart of a faltering West Indies side as the great teams of the past faded from view.

He saved much of his best work for England. His two world-record Test innings came against them. His 501*, the highest score in history, took place in Birmingham. Even his final game for the West Indies came against England.

Thirty years since his first world record, and twenty since he reclaimed it with Test cricket's only quadruple century, Lara is ready to tell his own story: the incomparable highs and harrowing lows of a life lived on teh edge.