On April 18, 1994, one of this coun­try's great­est sport­ing mo­ments was record­ed when Bri­an Lara blazed 375 runs against Eng­land and set his first world Test record.

At the oth­er end of the wick­et when Lara etched his name in the his­to­ry books was a then 19-year-old from Uni­ty Vil­lage in Guyana named Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul.

Chan­der­paul, at that time, was play­ing on­ly his fourth Test for the West In­dies.

And, as Lara neared the world record set in 1958 by Bar­ba­di­an leg­end Sir Garfield Sobers, he need­ed more than just phys­i­cal sup­port, so he turned to the Guyanese teen.

"As he'd got clos­er to Sobers' score, I could see that Bri­an was tir­ing and los­ing his fo­cus. He said to me, 'I don't know if I can go that far', but I told him that he'd come this far al­ready, and done the hard part, and just had a lit­tle fur­ther to go. 'Just re­lax and you'll get there,' I told him. 'Just keep fight­ing," Chan­der­paul re­called about that day.

For much of his crick­et­ing ca­reer, Chan­der­paul, lov­ing­ly called "Tiger," a nick­name giv­en him by the coach­ing staff, be­came known for his dogged­ness and re­silience. Apart from be­ing a rock in the West In­dies' mid­dle or­der, Chan­der­paul al­so be­came known for his un­ortho­dox "crab­like" bat­ting stance.

With 11,867 Test runs, Chan­der­paul is one of on­ly two Windies crick­eters to cross the 10,000-run mark. He is al­so ranked third over­all on the list for most runs by a West In­di­an in One Day In­ter­na­tion­als.

In 2016 with lit­tle fan­fare and recog­ni­tion, Chan­der­paul re­tired from the sport he ded­i­cat­ed his life to.

"Chan­der­paul’s con­tri­bu­tion to West In­dies crick­et came at a time when we were slid­ing down the sad slope of de­cay," the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies stat­ed when he was con­ferred with an ho­n­ourary doc­tor­ate in 2018.

Chan­der­paul is the an­chor man, the sol­id man: “a rare crick­eter whose ca­reer needs to be cel­e­brat­ed for­ev­er," UWI stat­ed.

That was done yes­ter­day when Chan­der­paul was among three peo­ple in­duct­ed in­to the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil's Hall of Fame ahead of the se­mi-fi­nal of the T20 World Cup at the Syd­ney Crick­et Ground. The oth­er two were Char­lotte Ed­wards and Ab­dul Qadir.

"It's an amaz­ing ho­n­our to fol­low the foot­steps of many leg­ends and so many oth­er great crick­eters of the past," Chan­der­paul said in an ICC re­lease. "I'm grate­ful for the recog­ni­tion and would like to en­joy the mo­ment with fam­i­ly, friends and most im­por­tant­ly the West In­dies crick­et fans and fans around the world who pas­sion­ate­ly sup­port­ed me through­out my ca­reer."

We at Guardian Me­dia ap­plaud the Tiger for this well-de­served ac­co­lade af­ter all he has done for West In­dies and world crick­et.

Chan­der­paul last month coached the Ja­maica Tallawahs to the Caribbean Pre­mier League T20 ti­tle and has al­so been an­nounced as USA Crick­et's head coach.

His son Tage­nar­ine has al­so earned his maid­en West In­dies call-up for the up­com­ing two-match Test se­ries in Aus­tralia.

As the West In­dies team now re­mains a shad­ow of its for­mer self, we urge the cur­rent and up­com­ing play­ers to take a page out of Chan­der­paul's book and see the val­ue of work­ing hard at their craft.