Andy Bull penned a lovely tribute to Chanderpaul in The Guardian earlier this week.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/fe...es-cricket
The entire article is well worth a read through.
Quote:Shivnarine Chanderpaul, whose distinctive batting has always seemed to belong to that little corner of the world where he was born, and raised, and still lives, as if it were the fruit of some strange crop that only grew in the soil there. He has finally retired from international cricket, at the age of 41, after 164 Tests spread across 21 years. His career reaches right back to 1994, when, 19 years old and too small for his own pads, he made 62 on his Test debut against England at Georgetown.
Desmond Haynes opened the batting that day, along with Richie Richardson. A year later, West Indies lost 2-1 to Australia, their first series defeat since 1980, and the point at which they ceased at last to be the best team in the world. Chanderpaul was the final link in the chain. His retirement has been coming for a long time now. His last innings was seven months ago, against England at Bridgetown. West Indies won that match but Chanderpaul made a duck in the fourth innings. A bittersweet ending, then, and appropriate, in an unfortunate way, for a man who scored more runs in defeats, 5,370, than any other player in history. Last time I wrote about Chanderpaul, he was about to become West Indies’ leading run-scorer. He was sitting second in the list then. And still is. With 11,867, he is 45 runs behind his old friend and team-mate Brian Lara. Or 86 if you include the handful Lara made for the ICC World XI.
...
Left alone, Chanderpaul would have gone on. He has never given anything away easy. His greatest innings weren’t measured in balls and runs so much as sessions and hours. Four times he went 1,000 minutes between consecutive Test dismissals. He was the only man to do that. In 2002 he batted, undefeated, for 25 hours spread across three innings against India. In 2007, 17 hours in three innings against England. In 2008, 18 hours in three innings against Australia. The point with Chanderpaul was always that he chose to play this way, reckoning it the best thing for the team. His career became one long rearguard against the decline of West Indian cricket. He was always capable of cutting loose when he wanted to, as he did against Australia at the Bourda in 2003, when he lashed a century off 69 balls against an attack of Jason Gillespie, Brett Lee, Andy Bichel and Stuart MacGill. He says he did it almost unthinkingly, having come to the crease with the score on 47 for four. Treat yourself, too, to this clip of his assault on Steve Harmison in an ODI at Providence in 2009.
...
Chanderpaul isn’t only the last link to the great West Indians but the final member, too, of a generation of batsmen, a contemporary of each and every one of Test cricket’s top 10 run-scorers. Around him in the list, Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis, Rahul Dravid, Kumar Sangakkara, and Mahela Jayawardene. In the end, he out-lasted them all, batting on, always, in his own inimitable style.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/fe...es-cricket
The entire article is well worth a read through.
