Scoring 10,000 in Test cricket is a great achievement for any batsman. Every batsman in the world wants to join the ‘10,000 Test runs club’. It started with Sunil Gavaskar, and since then, many great batsmen have become the part of this elite group. Mostly, the members of this group are rated very highly. Critics, pundits and fans keep talking about them, there are hundreds of Facebook pages on their names and many fans clubs are dedicated to them on Twitter. But, there’s one batsman, who, despite of being the member of this group, is highly understated and unsung. He’s one of the most gritty batsman you will ever see, and he has a crab-like batting stance. He’s not a very elegant looking batsman, but he’s surely one of the most effective. He’s the rock of West Indies Test team. He’s Shivnarine Chanderpaul.
We always talk about how determined Rahul Dravid was or how determined Kumar Sangakkara is. But, we never talk about Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who, even at the age 39, spends hours in front of the bowling machine and practices like a youngster.
We all talk about Sachin Tendulkar’s passion for the game, and how he gave his best throughout his playing career. But, no one talks about Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who has played cricket for over 20 years now, but his passion and enthusiasm for the game still remains the same. In fact, it seems ever-growing.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul scored most of his runs under the shadow of Brian Lara, who was undoubtedly the most premier West Indian batsmen of his generation. But, after Lara’s retirement, Chanderpaul has been the backbone of West Indies cricket. Chanderpaul is one of the most dependable batsmen West Indies have ever had, and arguably, one of the greatest ever.
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Following are records that Chandepaul holds after the recently concluded Test series against Bangladesh:
Chanderpual is the first batsman to witness 500 dismissals from the other end in Test cricket. He’s been an absolute rock for West Indies.
Chanderpaul is only the second West Indian, after former captain Clive Lloyd against Australia in 1984, to score a Test century aged 40 or more.
Chanderpaul, in the same Test match, also broke the record of involving in most number of partnerships in a Test career
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by Kaushik Narayanan
