He may have been dismissed for only 18 in today's Test match against Bangladesh but those runs were sufficient to take Shivnarine Chanderpaul past the milestone of 20,000 first-class runs. He joins quite an exclusive club of current players who have achieved such heavy scoring over a career, particularly amongst those playing regular Test cricket as international demands tend to reduce the amount of first-class cricket played.
OK, so he is miles behind Mark Ramprakash and also Caribbean legends like Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge and Clive Lloyd, who have well over 30,000 to their names. More recently, the only other truly world-class West Indian batsman has been Brian Lara, and he ended his career with 22,156 first-class runs from only five innings fewer than the number played by Chanderpaul so far. Lara scored more centuries and of course has a 400 and 501 to his name comapred with Shiv's best of 303 not out. However, the latter boasts a superior batting average of more than 54, even though at Test level it has slipped below 50 in the past year or two.
So how does Chanderpaul rate? Well, when you look at the current West Indian line-up, he stands out like a shining beacon amongst a pretty poor lot. One-day cricket has creamed off some of the best young talent from the islands, leaving only the 37 year-old from Guyana as a true Test batsman. He doesn't get the credit or the headlines that his runs deserve. It's the swashbucklers who sway and swish their boundaries who attract the attention, like Gayle and Pollard. He doesn't garner his runs in entertaining style like Richards, Lloyd, Lara et al but without him the West Indies would be in an even worse state of affairs.
Critics point to his 'crab' stance at the wicket, made for back foot nurdling rather than extravagant drives. Surely he is hopeless at the short-format stuff? Well, he has played a whopping 268 ODIs, averaging more than 41, again more than Lara who tended to make big scores or not much at all. Granted, Chanderpaul's style isn't ideal for the T20 thrash approach but in ODIs his strike rate is more than 70 which works out at around four an over. That makes him a useful man to play the anchor role, working the field, threading the gaps, while others aim to play over the fielders' heads.
As a sporting hero, he is not the first name or face to spring to mind. He likes to avoid the spotlight but that doesn't mean he should not be celebrated. At 37, he is nearing the end of his long career, of a similar age to Tendulkar, Ponting and Dravid. He made his Test debut at 19 at Georgetown, taking 62 off a poor England attack, in the shadow of centurions Lara and Jimmy Adams, and has since passed 50 a further 77 times in 134 matches. I hope he goes out with a bang and not a whimper. His runs at the end of the County Championship season almost clinched the title for Warwickshire but it must be dispiriting plying your trade for your country when the side is in turmoil, However, that has probably been the case for most of his Test career, although they had better results back in the 1990s! It would be nice if he could play another few Test series and reach 10,000 Test runs and then Shivnarine Chanderpaul would perhaps finally be recognised as one of cricket's modern batting superstars.
