Do we pick a player to break a record or score runs
Sat, May 16, '15
Shivnarine Chanderpaul is a legend in the sport of cricket to my mind but I think he has stayed on far too long and in the end he would leave cricket as a player who did not time his exit as well as he did many of the 27,395 balls he faced in Test cricket.
The left hander is hanging around Test cricket at the age of 40, and 277 days and counting, as he need just 87 more runs to surpass Brian Lara and become the leading run scorer for West Indies in Tests. Lara hung-up his bat at 11,953 runs during his career and Chanderpaul has 11,867 at the moment. He was chosen to play against England recently but failed miserably, as he did in South Africa (averaging around 16 in the two tours).
The question now is whether the West Indies selectors should be emotional and pick him, a decision that would him to pass Lara’s record, or will they think ‘Team’ first and get one of the young players into the team for the two Test matches against Australia.
