Posted by Rahul Bhattacharya’s piece about Shivnarine Chanderpaul in the November issue of The Cricket Monthly is full of highlights, not least because a man who is himself one of our favourite cricketers also seems to revere exactly the same players we do.
He describes how Brian Lara would sometimes put spin on the ball with his shots to evade fielders and then at other times wouldn’t, depending on where they were positioned.
There’s also a fantasic quote about the challenge of facing Wasim Akram:
“After looking for swing-swing-swing all of a sudden I saw a ball on my face.”
However, our favourite moment is the way he tells another Wasim Akram story and more specifically how he punctuates it.
“Wasim bowl a few that went across him. Hooper normally play bat-and-pad, but he left a little gap just enough for the ball to pass through. Wasim had a look at him. Then Wasim had one go back through that little gap and hit them stumps. That is how good this guy is. Wasim is an unbelievable bowler. Wasim Akram.”
That’s how you end a cricket anecdote. You say the name of the player as if you’re ending a prayer.
That Shivnarine Chanderpaul, he’s one hell of a guy. Shivnarine Chanderpaul.
I think it is seriously time to consider the fact that Chanderpaul is clearly an immortal. In the film of his life, the only option to play him is Christopher Lambert.
Having outlasted Mahela Jayawardene he is the last test cricketer from the 90s still playing and is still playing well enough to justify his selection in perpetuity.
AND he plays like he learned cricket from a crab in the Carboniferous period.
Has anyone ever seen him try and decapitate Kumar Sangakkara with his bat whilst screaming “there can be only one”?
you forget afridi. he’ll be back. a
Loved the bit about the guy who stares at Chanders at the traffic signal. And the pics of course.
Sri Lanka stories would be very long if you did that.
Whereas stories about you, oh insightful KC appealer would not. They’d just appear be terminally punctuated by a triumphal musical sound. Dada.
That’s all very interesting, but the real question when it comes to Shiv Chanderpaul is surely, “How we he order at the salad bar?” (Context: http://www.espncricinfo.com/blogs/content/story/798139.html )
I suspect that he’d awkwardly and slowly waddle up to the bar, so that you’d expect him to fall over as he does so; but by the end of the day, the only reason he has to stop eating salad is that all the people he came in with are full already.
And he’d have the crab salad, natch.
For “we” read “would”.
Aaah, Shiv. Now just 269 test runs short of BCL, and at a slightly superior average. Albeit one burgeoned by the many not-outs, some possibly borne of the frustration of many a test bowler who gave up on the fruitless quest to dismiss him to save an inevitable coronary incident.
Limpet-like powers that were strangely absent that September afternoon in 2010 and which might have enabled Somerset to snatch a maiden County Championship title.
Chanderpaul? Shiv? Doesn’t ring a bell. Any relation to the Lord Megachief of gold?