Farewell, Shiv Chanderpaul
Mailer Report pays tribute to legendary West Indian batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who was controversially axed for his team’s Test series against Australia.
By: Garfield Robinson
The story of West Indian batting is one, largely, of hard-hitting, expansive strokemakers who instilled fear in the hearts of opposition bowlers. It is the story of fluency and forcefulness; of solid batsmen who didn’t overindulge in defensive play, seeing more value in attack. It is the story of Headley, the Three Ws, Kanhai, Sobers, Greenidge, Haynes, Richards, Richardson, Lara and Gayle; batsmen capable of volcanic explosion or clinical dismemberment.
For much of the last two decades, however, it has also been the story of an altogether different kind of player; a batsman at polar opposites to those previously mentioned. Shivnarine Chanderpaul first played for the West Indies in 1994, and since then has accumulated 20,654 international runs with 41 centuries. And whenever the tale of West Indian batting is being told his name cannot be left out.
But whereas the typical West Indian batsman thrilled the crowds and kept the scoreboards racing with full-bloodied strokes to all corners, Chanderpaul nudged, tapped, deflected, glided, guided. If he was less compelling to watch he could often be as effective. He might not have done his work with as much style but he did it well just the same.
That is not to say the Guyanese was limited in range; he was the proprietor of almost every stroke in the book as he showed in his 69-ball century at Bourda in 20003, or during his 1996 assault on Shane Warne at Sydney that was only ended by what the legspinner claimed was perhaps the best delivery of his career. It should also be remembered that there was a time when he opened the batting in One Day Internationals (ODIs) and his scoring rate was far from pedestrian.
Yet it was evident that Chanderpaul took to heart a simple and timeless truth of cricket: the longer you remain at the crease the more runs you are likely to score. To that end the left-hander deciphered, and to the degree he was able, perfected a unique method of play.
His strength of character was such that it enabled him, in a way, to plot his own path. The technique he developed was not aesthetically pleasing, and upon seeing his strange stance for the first time experts could be forgiven if they thought to themselves or exclaimed to the batsman: “you can’t bat like that!†Nonetheless, it was a system that was exceedingly effective in allowing him to survive in the middle for protracted periods.
Australian opener David Warner tells of witnessing Chanderpaul bat for six hours against a bowling machine when they both appeared for Durham. After expressing his astonishment, Warner reports that the West Indian laid this bit of wisdom on him: “If you’re going to bat six hours in a game you might as well practice it.†This was the kind of single-mindedness that facilitated his success.
It took Chanderpaul a while to really get going in test cricket. He often got starts, falling frequently on the 40s and 50s, and never reached triple figures until his 19th test in March 1997 against India. He made another a year later when England visited the West Indies but the steady stream of runs never turned into a flood until 2002 when he reeled off three hundreds against India in the Caribbean. It was during this series that he scored 362 runs over four innings before being dismissed.
In the 1930s, George Headley was dubbed Atlas for bearing the weight of the West Indies’ batting almost on his own. And since the retirement of Brian Lara in 2007 that same burden has been generally Chanderpaul’s to endure. Chris Gayle, Darren Bravo, Marlon Samuels and others made their contributions from time to time, just as Headley sometimes had the support of Clifford Roach, but Chanderpaul was the one who consistently carried the West Indies’ batting on his slender shoulders.
The West Indies has not been a winning team in all of this time. But how much worse would things have been if the game’s most tenacious blade were not available to the Caribbean side? How many more games would they have lost and how much worse would some of the losses have been?
A few years ago after a particularly powerful hurricane that almost totally devastated parts of Texas, there was an area with one isolated, upright structure amid a sea of destruction – the one structure that survived the full wrath of the terrible storm. I took that image as a metaphor of Chanderpaul playing a lone, defiant hand at one end while total chaos reigned at the other. The veteran left-hander has often stood as the lone sentinel guarding and defending West Indian pride; the only one that remained standing after the others fled or had fallen.
It is rather unfair then to see how frequently he was castigated as selfish. The all too often made charge is that Chanderpaul only really cared about Chanderpaul: his runs, his not outs, his high average. His critics say he does not try to shield the tail, or to accelerate the scoring while running out of partners; he bats always at his own pace with little regard for the needs of his team.
I admit that there have been times when I thought he should have tried to impose himself more on proceedings. I accept, however, that to some degree, Chanderpaul might have compromised flexibility in favour of solidity, and that his adopted methods, on the whole, have served himself and his team well for many years.
In the same way that we have to accept that the aggressive batsman will be dismissed attempting aggressive, even reckless shots, we should also accept that the stonewalling batsman will forgo scoring opportunities, and like the shot maker will frequently refrain to divert from their usual habits. The player that changes his game according to the circumstances should be admired, but in this difficult business of test match batting you can scarcely fault a man for sticking to the approach that made him successful.
It would be difficult to dispute that the great Guyanese batsman has had an outstanding career. I doubt he’d have many regrets. His unfortunate stint as captain was probably one, for it was a position that did not fit his introspective nature. Another -- and this one is big -- would be the fact that he was a big part of what was a losing team for much of his career. That must have been a hard pill to swallow, considering he started in an all-conquering side that was then undefeated for almost a decade and a half.
Still, when he was a youngster in Unity Village playing against much older men and coached by his father and uncle, I’m sure he’d have been overjoyed if somehow it were revealed to him that he would grow up to be one of the best batsmen of his time. He lived for cricket even then. Making it in the game was enormously important and he and his immediate support group can be satisfied that their hard work yielded abundant reward. A man who pushes himself to ascend to the most elite level in his field and stays there for a long time has done exceedingly well. That is what Chanderpaul has done. He should be proud.
Farewell then Tiger. You have done your duty. If the colleagues you left behind and the young players entering the ranks are able to muster anything like the thoughtfulness and commitment you applied to your job, then the future of West Indies cricket will be bright.
Garfield Robinson is originally from Jamaica and now lives in Louisiana. He is a West Indian cricket tragic and can be reached @spiider10
