Shivnarine Chanderpaul: An unsung hero from Guyana , West Indies

Shivnarine Chanderpaul: An unsung hero  from Guyana , West Indies

His behaviour was calm and peaceful on the field; but still he has been called as Tiger and this nick name was given to him by former West Indian legend cricketer Rohan Kanhai because his attacking batting style on bowlers.  I was also amazing with his stance. He used to turn his stand in such ninety-degree angle, so that one can feel that he was facing a bowler coming from square leg. He was the most consistent performer and popular for his unorthodox style of batting rather than technique or shots. He is nothing but Shivnarine Chanderpaul a Guyanese left-hander batsman.

From Yogesh Gogwekar

Shivnarine Chanderpaul was born on 16^th August 1974 in Guyana into the family of Indo-Guyanese family. They are original from Bihar India. Even though this family settled down in West Indies, they are following their ancestral religion i.e. Hinduism and Shivnarine is highly religious and spiritual in his approach. During his childhood, Chanderpaul started taking interest in the game and used to play the game from village’s cricket team where he would frequently bat for hours. After seeing his interest in Cricket, his father Kamraj, helped him to develop his ability as a batsman and took him to Everest club in Georgetown but he could not get place in that club. Therefore, Shivnarine has no choice but to join the Demerata Cricket club where he has been selected for less than 16 sides at the age of 10.

At the age of 17, he made his debut in first class cricket from Guyana. He started his first inning with no score but scored 90 runs in second inning against Leeward Island. But his real talent came into the light when he scored 140 runs and took 4 wickets for the West Indies Board President’s XI against the Pakistan in three days match. He played his first test at the age of 19 against England in England in 1993-94 and also he played his last match against England on 1^st May 2015. His first one day international was played against India on 17^th October 1994 and last one day international was against Pakistan on 23^rd March 2011. During his tenure in test matches, he played 164 test matches by scoring 11867 runs with 30 tones and 66 half-centuries at an impressive average of 51.37. Similarly, he played 268 one day international and scored 8778 runs with 11 centuries and 59 half centuries at an average of 41. He is always considered as all-rounder but his bowling records are not much. He has taken 9 wickets in test matches with an average of 98.11 and 14 wickets in one day international with an average of 45.42.

There are some players of Indian origin like Ramnaresh Sarwan, Ravi Rampau, Sunil Naraine, etc. played for West Indies but only Shivnarine Chanderpaul played more than 100 tests for West Indies. He is the second largest run-getter for West Indies after Brian Lara. Chanderpaul scored 11867 runs whereas Brian Lara scored 11953 runs in test cricket. He is holding the record for batting more than 1000 minutes between dismissals in his test career. He was the second batsman in the world who scored 203 in his first Test captaincy debut against South Africa. Before him Graham Dowling of New Zealand had scored 239 in his first Test Captaincy Debut.  He was also famous for his two anti-glare stickers which were pasted under his eyes to refract the sunlight.

After playing cricket for two decades, West Indies Cricket board called the time for his career in 2015 as he scored just one fifty and could not score more than one digit in remaining 11 innings. This was being done in messy and unpredictable way. Still his major contributions to the victory to West Indies in crucial matches against the tough opponents cannot be forgotten. Even though, his name has been given to the street of Capital City Guyana, he continued to remain unsung hero for his team.

Today his elder son, Tagenarine Chanderpaul is continuing his legacy by playing as an opener batsman for Guyana and made his debut in first class cricket on 9^th February 2013. Very soon, cricket lovers can see him playing for international cricket.

I am closing my writing by giving one incidence happened in one particular match between India and West Indies in 2011 which was playing at Ferozeshah Kotla Ground, Delhi,  where Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar had asked Bihar Test cricket Board to announced Awards to the best cricketers from Bihar. When Bihar Test Cricket Board checked the records, they did not find any cricketers were from Bihar as Dhoni has already shifted to Jharkhand. But CM Nitish Kumar was aware that Shivnarine Chanderpaul was original from Purnea district of Bihar and gave this award to him as Bihari cricketer of the Decade.

Mumbai

10/06/2020