Legendary West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul is adamant this is merely a “bad patch” that the T&T Red Force team is experiencing thus far in the ongoing West Indies Regional Four-Day Championship.
T&T Red Force has started the season with two losses and a win. However, Chanderpaul feels that there is no need to panic.
“You have a lot of talented cricketers here. Sometimes, you go through a bad patch," he said. "I could remember we went through a bad patch and we learned from it and moved on.”
The former Windies captain was recently in Trinidad, coaching the USA Universities team that is currently competing in the University of the West Indies (UWI) World Universities T20 Cricket Tournament in St Augustine.
Midway through the tournament, however, Chanderpaul had to fly back to his homeland after assuming the role of assistant coach of the Guyana Jaguars team.
“Trinidad has always been like a home to us. We would come here and we would have a good time and we would enjoy ourselves,” said the unorthodox left-hander, who finished his Test cricket career with 11,867 runs.
Indeed, this country holds a special place in his heart. Trinidad is where he scored his first First-Class century, and the Queen’s Park Oval in St Clair, Port-of-Spain was the stage where he became a hero, 11 years ago.
With six runs required off the last ball to win the first One Day International (ODI) against Sri Lanka in 2008, Chanderpaul took two steps toward Chaminda Vaas and slotted him over deep mid-wicket to send the Queen’s Park Oval crowd into a frenzy.
For a man who has set many milestones in world and West Indies cricket and spent countless hours at the crease, he admits he doesn’t miss playing the sport.
“It’s much more relaxing now. It’s not so much stress like putting on your pads and getting ready to go and bat,” joked Chanderpaul, who is now focused on his role off the field as he joins a successful Guyana Jaguars team, who have won all four of their matches this season.
On West Indies cricket, he admitted that the rise of T20 cricket is contributing to the downward spiral of regional cricket, especially on the recent tours of India and Bangladesh.
“Some of the guys go out aggressive and want to play a lot of shots but it’s not that easy to adjust from T20 cricket to Test matches,” Chanderpaul said.
Like in his playing days, the modest Guyanese continues to steer clear of confrontations when asked about the administrative issues in West Indies cricket, choosing to say: “I don’t know much about what’s happening up there so I can’t answer.”
He was also diplomatic in his answer about Richard Pybus’ appointment as West Indies head coach.
“He’s been around for a while and he knows the players. He’s got enough experience and he’s probably the right person for the job.”
Chanderpaul has kept one trait about him long after his playing days, he keeps his focus on the field of play and rarely off.