OF THE two sportsmen who have joyously celebrated a personal achievement this week, I am much more inclined to share the delight of the American golfer rather than the West Indian batsman.

Except in events like the Ryder Cup, golf is an individual pursuit and deservedly winning his first major after going close so often entitled Phil Mickelson to unreserved admiration at the climax of yet another thrilling Masters.

The same cannot be said of Brian Lara. Cricket is the prime example of a team game in which it is counter-productive to rely too heavily on one man. It is also a game which requires a good contest between two well-matched sides to maintain interest.

In the absence of runs from Lara in the first three Tests, the West Indies tamely went 3-0 down and there was nothing left for their selfish captain other than to indulge his liking for personal records.

There was cause for great excitement when he first broke both the Test and first-class records in 1993-94 as they had stood for a long time. But there have since been lengthy periods when the man who clearly wants to be considered the greatest has not lived up to expectations.

Then after Matthew Hayden usurped his mantle, he suddenly spotted an opportunity to regain the record and greedily grabbed it, even if it meant batting on far longer than his team and the contest required.

Unless the pitch deteriorates rapidly, enforcing the follow-on can pile too heavy a workload on the bowlers, which is what seems to have happened in Antigua, allowing England's openers to end their lean runs. What a pity Michael Vaughan didn't have time to make 401.

Lara's 501 not out against Durham was made in a dead match going nowhere because the teams couldn't agree on a strategy to produce a result. And his 400 this week came in a dead match in which he might have had half an eye on avoiding a whitewash but was mainly focused on personal achievement. If only he'd scored a couple of little hundreds earlier he might have made a fight of the series.

IT can be argued that truly great sportsmen will perform on any surface, so why is it that Lara can't score Test runs in his native Trinidad, but always seems to fill his boots in Antigua?

The great golfers of yesteryear performed well anywhere without the advantage of today's manicured fairways and greens, so why is it that Colin Montgomerie often does well at the US Open but regularly comes a cropper round Augusta?

Horses for courses, you might say, and that argument even extends to tennis, which is why we shouldn't take it for granted that we will beat Austria in the Davis Cup in September.

If they want to advance to the World Group next February, Great Britain will again have to rely on Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski following Arvind Parmar's failure against Luxembourg. But they will apparently have to do battle on damp indoor clay, which is anathema to both.

Then there's the dodgy surface at St James' Park, which could have been condemned as unfit to stage a quarter-final tie in a top European competition. I'm amazed that there have not yet been serious calls for penalties against football clubs who prefer to pay one player more in a week than it would take to provide an adequate surface.

WE all know about Bosman and his catastrophic effect on the football transfer market; now we have to contend with Kolpak.

Maros Kolpak is a Slovakian handball player who appealed to the European Court of Justice after being denied employment in Germany by a restriction on non-European Union players. Slovakia is not in the EU but it does have a trade agreement with it, which is why Kolpak won his case.

South Africa and the Pacific Islands have the same agreement, which has allowed their rugby players to flood English clubs this winter, and now Leicestershire County Cricket Club have exploited the Kolpak loophole to sign a South African named Claude Henderson.

What is the point of setting up well-equipped academies staffed by highly-qualified coaches if we are going to deny the products their rightful opportunities by throwing our doors open to foreigners?

There were 22 EU-qualified players in county cricket last season and Derbyshire alone have six this year.

The only consolation is that the increasing turmoil in Zimbabwean cricket makes us look relatively sane, as well as giving us another reason not to send our national team there in September.

FINALLY, getting back to Phil Mickelson, I was among those who felt he didn't have the bottle to win a major. But five scintillating birdies in the last seven holes dramatically disproved that and spared us from being plunged into a coma by yet another interview with the charisma-free Ernie Els.

Still, as a South African Ernie could use the Kolpak ruling to play in our Ryder Cup team. Now that wouldn't be a bad idea