Shivnarine Chanderpaul's defiant innings in the first Test against England at Lords on Sunday-which followed a similar knock in the first innings-assured West Indies cricket fans that all is not lost with the Caribbean team. His sparkling Sunday performance inspired hope, if only for a few hours, of a possible, even if unlikely victory against the top cricket team in the world. Although in the end the Windies lost by five wickets, the left-hander's memorable 91 in a partnership with Marlon Samuels, who hit 86, lifted the team to a second-innings total of 345. It certainly silenced, although only briefly, English sports commentators, who have been brutal in their assessments of the Windies team, even describing the players as "waifs and strays." However, the commentators can hardly apply that demeaning label to Chanderpaul, who has been in top batting form in recent times. In the just-concluded home series against Australia, the Guyanese batsman scored respectively 103 not out, 12, 94, 68 and 69 for an aggregate of 346 in five innings.
He has now added to that run haul another 178 runs at Lords, giving England's bowlers the challenge of finding a way to dispose of him more quickly. Hopefully, Chanderpaul's teammates were inspired by his ten hours and 25 minutes of batting (he was not out in the first innings)-a mammoth feat of concentration-which ended when he was finally given out by the lbw route. Long batting spells are not unusual for Chanderpaul, who batted for 11 hours in one innings against Australia just last month. By the time an English bowler managed to prise him out of the wicket last weekend, he had steered the Windies to a lead of 110 runs. No mean feat when one considers that when he started, the team was 65 for four and in danger of an innings defeat. Hopefully, some of the dogged determination with which Chanderpaul played his innings rubbed off on Samuels, who is yet consistently to display any staying power.
Chanderpaul's teammates should all take note that his marathon batting feat on Sunday-and many of his cricket accomplishments to date-were achieved through hard work, sheer willpower and strong determination. More West Indies players need to acquire and display those characteristics. He may not be the most exciting player to look at, but he gets the job done, and, if he continues in his current top form, he could be bad news for the England team. Chanderpaul spent much of his early international cricket career in the shadow of batting legend Brian Lara. In fact, his first notable impact on Test cricket was as Lara's batting partner when Lara broke Gary Sobers' record of 365 in a game against England in Antigua. Luckily for the current team, Chanderpaul stuck it out to the end of the Lara era in West Indian cricket to emerge as the team's senior batsman. He is also now only the second West Indian, behind Lara, to have scored more than 10,000 Test runs.
Even while there are calls throughout the region for Chris Gayle and Ramnarace Sarwan to be brought back into the Windies team to bolster the batting line-up, it is important to acknowledge and celebrate the fact that a player of the calibre of Chanderpaul is already there. Hopefully, this is recognised by the WICB and other decision-makers, who can at times be as unpredictable as the team in coming up with and sticking to winning formulas. One of the things that needs attention is the Windies batting order. Chanderpaul is undeniably the team's strongest batsmen and sooner, rather than later, he should be moved up from his current fifth position to third. In the end, Sunday's display was just a brilliant interlude in a losing effort. But the fightback, led by Chanderpaul, was reason to celebrate.
