Shivnarine Chanderpaul is just 87 runs away from surpassing Brian Lara’s tally of 11,953 as the most runs by a West Indian in Test cricket. (Randy Brooks / WICB Media)
AFP/Port of Spain
Shivnarine Chanderpaul is disappointed with the manner in which his career as a West Indies cricketer has come to an end but insists that he has not yet retired from the game.
Chairman of the West Indies Cricket Board’s selection panel, Clive Lloyd, explained the need to give younger batsmen in the region an opportunity following the announcement at the weekend that the 40-year-old veteran of 164 Tests was not included in the 12-man training squad that will be based in Barbados ahead of the first of two Tests against Australia.
Dominica hosts the first Test beginning June 3 with the second and final match getting underway in Jamaica June 11. “My request to finish up with the Australian series is not asking too much,” Chanderpaul was quoted as saying in the local newspaper ‘Kaiteur News’ on Tuesday. “It gives me a chance to acknowledge my supporters at home...I should not be pushed into retirement.”
Confirming that he will be available for his native Guyana when the regional first-class season begins in November, Chanderpaul has found solid support from his countrymen, especially with the left-hander just 87 runs away from surpassing Brian Lara’s tally of 11,953 as the most runs by a West Indian in Test cricket.
That backing includes the Guyana Cricket Board, whose officials have condemned the decision. However new head coach Phil
Simmons emphasised that selecting a West Indies team had nothing to do with sentiment and was all about picking the best available players to compete against a formidable Australian side.
“When we went through the process, he didn’t fit in so it’s not about giving someone two Tests to finish their career,” Simmons explained. “It’s about picking the best team to play the next game.”
Ironically, Simmons, then a West Indies opening batsman, was dropped in 1994 to accommodate Chanderpaul’s Test debut as a 19-year-old at the former Guyana Test venue of Bourda. Despite his durability and consistency - he averages 51.37 per Test innings - the former captain has endured a precipitous drop in form over the past two series, averaging just 16.63 overall in three Tests in South Africa at the end of last year and a similar three-match duel at home to England which ended earlier this month.
West Indies’ squad for the first Test at Windsor Park is expected to be finalised on Friday evening following the Australians’ only warm-up match of the tour, a three-day fixture against a WICB President’s XI that began on Wednesday in Antigua.
Australia aim to get up West Indies ‘noses’ with bouncers
Melbourne: Caribbean pitches may no longer have the zing to excite express pacemen but Australia will still look to soften up West Indies with a barrage of bouncers in the upcoming Test series, bowling coach Craig McDermott has said.
Australia play the first of two Tests at Windsor Park in Dominica next week and have included uncapped leg-spinner Fawad Ahmed in the squad along with front-line off-spinner Nathan Lyon in anticipation of flat, slow wickets.
However, McDermott said Australia’s pacemen could still have an impact after learning some harsh lessons from the slow pitches in the Middle East where they laboured in a 2-0 series defeat by Pakistan last year.
“We’ve just got to make sure we get enough balls in the right areas and be relentless and patient and stick two up their nose an over,” McDermott told Cricket Australia’s website (cricket.com.au).
“Certainly I’ve been talking to (pace bowler) Josh (Hazlewood) and (all-rounder) Mitchell Marsh in particular about using the crease and creating angles if the ball’s not doing much. They’re both tall blokes so they’re going to get some bounce. We’re allowed to bowl two bouncers an over so let’s use them.”
Australia’s seamers were hammered by Pakistan in both Tests in the United Arab Emirates, with Peter Siddle conceding 217 runs for two wickets and left-armer Mitchell Starc averaging 71 for his two scalps.
But McDermott expected more help from the wickets at Windsor Park and Sabina Park in Jamaica, venue for the second Test, as well as from the Duke balls to be used in the series. “I think the ball will swing naturally here more than what it did in the UAE (when) we had to try to smash it up,” he said.
“The seams are a lot wider and a lot bigger here. If you get your seam position right you’re able to get a leg cutter or an off-cutter by default. Our boys have been bowling with (the Duke balls) in Brisbane. They move around a little bit more on our Australian wickets, particularly at the NCC where we had bit of grass on them,” added McDermott of the National Cricket Centre, the elite training facility. “But they’re moving off the deck out here (too).”
Australia have not lost a series home or away to West Indies since 1992/93.
