The mark Chanderpaul left on me

Tue, Feb 9, '16

His retirement has not only marked the end of an era in batting, it marks for some of us the snapping of the final link to childhood Chanderpaul.

Even the name has a slight ungainliness about its three syllables. It does not have the flowing seductiveness of "Lara". You can try and smooth it by softening the ch- to the sh of champagne, of shimmy, of chassé. But within my head it is Tony Cozier's distinctive tch- that marks its ground, that hunches slightly, that frowns and knuckles down: this name means to stay. The ch- of chisel. Of charge. Of champion.
Wait: champion? Too brash a word for Shiv, surely, but he was just that: indeed, he was the highest scorer for West Indies in their triumphant 2004 Champions Trophy final, and averaged 63.50 across their four matches in that competition.
To state the obvious, with Chanderpaul it was always the stance rather than the shots that stuck in the memory. Yet his stance, the development of which Christian Ryan has done a superb job of chronicling, would have remained a mere quirk, destined to be only occasionally recalled and derided, had it not been allied to such consistent, near-phenomenal success.