The Reform of Shiv Chanderpaul

Realistically by 4.30 p.m., there was no hope for a win in the final One-Day International between the West Indies and India. Favourable conditions were already eroded by a rain-affected total, which left the West Indies to score 248 in 44 overs at 5.63 runs an over (although the Indians had scored their 260 at 5.2).

Then openers Wavell Hinds and Chris Gayle went cheaply and quickly before Ramnaresh Sarwan and Brian Lara came together; but they did little to meet the required run rate, and though they scored some runs, the rate climbed to seven-plus and stayed there throughout the innings. Neither batsman opened up the way the near-capacity crowd kept expecting them to, and by the time they departed, followed closely by skipper Carl Hooper, the festive air had slumped into the doldrums. Then came Shiv...

Shivnarine Chanderpaul came, and as he aggressively pursued his 51 runs, a kind of wild optimism gripped the Queen's Park Oval. They smelled possibility, and they jumped and cheered its tentative presence as if willing it to harden into reality. As Ridley Jacobs hammered a boundary at 4.40, it didn?t matter to anyone that there were still 96 runs to get in 12 and a half overs, with only bowlers behind. True, a One-Day crowd is a party animal, seeking entertainment with no hard feelings about the outcome and tenor of the game; but when Sarwan, Hooper and Lara left, the gloom was unmistakeable.

But Chanderpaul and Jacobs showed no tentativeness; neither to the bowling nor to the predicament. They were playing their shots confidently, running alertly, and brought a spiritedness to the innings that had not yet been seen. When Chanderpaul made his fifty, it was to a standing ovation.

If, with 96 runs to go at more than seven an over, we were in deep trouble, the temperament of the two ignored that, and concentrated instead on making it so possible, that once again, the Indian team suddenly seemed to be on the backfoot.

Then Chanderpaul was out at 4.45 and we knew we had lost the game. It was no surprise that the crowd was so pumped up that the music blaring from the Trini Posse was Tambu?s defiant ?No, No, We ain?t going home?.

Chanderpaul had again brought hope to West Indies cricket fans. It was not unsurprising, as his performance in the Test series against India was a mature, confident one, that earned him the title of Man of the Series with 562 runs at 140-plus.

Starting with the 140 at Bourda, and keeping up the momentum with careful, patient, unhurried centuries throughout the series, Chanderpaul emerged again as a batsman who has refined the promise he had shown nearly eight years ago when he was first capped for the West Indies team.

His composure remains intact, his measured strokeplay gives as few chances to bowlers, and although during the Tests he did not unleash many flurries of charges on the boundaries and the scoreboards, he still collected the runs. And in this One-Day, he showed some flair with a range of strokes and boundaries, delighting the crowd, who?d come to characterise him as the stolid Larry Gomes-type of anchor.

The stolidity is still there, but whereas in the past, he had seemed to be falling prey to a lack of stamina that saw him getting past 50 many times without coming to a century, in this incarnation, he can summon reserves to take him where he wants to go.

It could not have come at a better time. With the team largely comprised of young players, it is good that the experienced Chanderpaul has re-emerged from the nebulous state of unfitness, which had enveloped him for a while.

Are we seeing the re-making of Chanderpaul?

When he first joined the team for the second Test against England at Bourda, he was only 19, and he celebrated his debut with 62 runs. He followed it with a 50 at the Queen?s Park Oval, but even then, his was not a sure place on the side. He was in and out of the team for following tours of India and New Zealand, and even left out for the 1995 visit by Australia. This after being the not out partner on 75 to Brian Lara when he scored his 375 runs in Antigua in April 1994.

But he was the spot of excitement during the tour of Australia at the end of 1996. With the team performing badly, Chanderpaul put down a brilliant 71 off 68 balls, with ten fours, before an equally brilliant Shane Warne ball spun from way outside the off-stump to hit the middle and off stumps.

He was soon moving up the order, to land at number three, a position often reserved for the most aggressive batsman on the team. It was a position, team manager, Clive Lloyd, felt he was more than able to handle. Remarking that Chanderpaul had been recruited to fill the opening spot in One-Days, and had been a good middle-order batsman, Lloyd said, ?He has proved that he can handle any situation,? adding that the team needed more of that sort of Larry Gomes type who could weather any storm.

The supporting role has often gone to Chanderpaul, a measure of his understated doggedness and quiet reliability. His retreating personality has often been interpreted as a sign of timidity, but really for this Leo, it is the external manifestation of a character more hardened and tenacious than he cares to show. He seems to be a mix of a reserved, cautious, analytical type, who is given to supporting roles, and a confident, dedicated performer who believes in getting the job done without fuss. Clearly, he is not comfortable with the limelight, and appears to dislike intrusions on his privacy.

But for all that apparent reserve and quiet, there is obviously a brain ticking somberly and responsibly in there.

For a time, it had seemed that the fame that had come to this youngster from the rural part of the East Coast in Guyana, Unity Village, had swept him off his moorings. There were stories of an eventful nightlife, once leading to a shooting at the seawall in Georgetown. And a dissolute air seemed to come over him, his performance level was wavering, and injury after injury saw him and out of the West Indies team.

Chanderpaul, it seemed, was washed up.

The teenager who?d made it from the Unity Village team to the East Coast Police squad, and then the Georgetown Cricket Club in no time at all, had excited enough cricket watchers to propel him into relative stardom shortly after his first Red Stripe Cup series. The next step was at the West Indies youth and senior national levels and he was so impressive (at 17, he scored 90 against the Leewards who had Kenny Benjamin, Hamesh Anthony and Vaughn Walsh), that in two years he was on the West Indies squad. Not even Brian Lara had made such a quick entry.

The ride may have been too sudden and the distance too far in that short time, and with no counsel and preparation from the West Indies Cricket Board for their young charges, it is not surprising if things became derailed for a while.

But he seems to have settled down now. There seems to be a good rapport between his captain and himself. Physically, there is a little more to his small frame, and he seems to have worked hard on his fitness. It shows in the added stamina, which has taken him to three centuries in this last Test series. That he thought the Indian bowling was ?sweet? was as clear as when he encountered them during their 1997 tour (when he was also Man of the Series). This time around, maybe he senses his seniority and accepts the responsibility it brings. Maybe now that he is a husband and father, he is even more focussed and fearless.

And people sense it.

When he strides out to the pitch and takes guard after completing his ritual of marking his space with the bails, there is a purposeful sense of leadership surrounding him. It must bring some confidence to his young teammates, the way Lloyd might have done in his day. And perhaps in the fullness of time, Chanderpaul might one day fill that role for the West Indies.

SOURCE: Trinidad Express