Salute to Shiv …. see his career stats here
NOVEMBER 15, 2013 · Stabroek News – EDITORIAL
Shivnarine Chanderpaul is this weekend playing in his 150th Test match, the only West Indian to do so. That he should be celebrating this landmark in Sachin Tendulkar’s historic 200th Test and swansong in front of his devotees in Mumbai is typical of the career of this most undemonstrative of batsmen and this most unassuming of cricketers. For, even as he has achieved greatness at the wicket, Chanderpaul has always seemed to be overshadowed by the more dashing exploits and more colourful personalities of other cricketers.
Ever since, as a skinny 19-year old whose kit was too big for him, he diffidently walked to the crease against England, in March 1994, on debut at Bourda, the ground that nurtured his precocious talent, he has, somehow or the other, never quite been able to measure up, in the eyes of many, to the flair and flamboyance associated with the legends of West Indies batting. For much of his career, he batted in the shadow of Brian Lara, sometimes even forgotten as the reassuring presence (still in his first Test series!) at the other end as the Trinidadian maestro progressed to his world record 375. Continue reading
Cricket: The Lara nightmare for Australia – By Ben Pobjie in Cricket Monthly
The Lara nightmare – A saga in which Australian hopes were repeatedly ground to dust
Brian Lara -1999
BEN POBJIE | SEPTEMBER 2016 – http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/
How could I not hate Brian Lara (see stats here)? He was exactly the kind of cocky, flashy show-off that Australians are trained from birth to despise: especially if the show-off is not Australian; and doubly so if the show-off happens to be very, very good. To see a man who is too big for his boots is anathema for many an Aussie fan. To see the same man demonstrate that, in fact, he fits into those boots perfectly is utterly unbearable.
My memories of Lara are mainly of frustration, of games that my beloved Australia would have won easily were it not for this contemptuous aristocrat standing in the way, plundering great and average bowlers alike. And he did it with such a born-to-rule attitude that you grew to hate the sight of him. Continue reading →
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