A case for Chanderpaul

May 30, 2015 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
Was Chanderpaul wrong to refuse to retire before the test match in Dominica? Are those who wanted him to play for WI against Australia being sentimental? I don’t think so. Maybe as a non-West Indian I can offer a useful and objective perspective.
First, let’s use reason instead of emotion and look at things from Chanderpaul’s point of view.
Imagine that you are a 40-year-old batsman in a weak team who has averaged over 50 runs per test match innings for the past five consecutive calendar years. Imagine that you are one of the rarest of elite batsmen in the history of the game because your test batting average actually got significantly better when you were between the ages of 35 and 40 years old.
Imagine that during last five calendar years you had the best stretch of your 20-year career and your average in 2014, the immediate past calendar year, was the second best of your career, second only to 2012 when you had your highest calendar year average of approximately 98 runs per innings.
Imagine that the next test match for your team is to be played in Dominica where you are an honorary citizen because you batted better there than anywhere else; because you scored two centuries and two fifties in three tests there; because you average 96 runs per innings there, and because you scored your latest first class century just two months ago.
For Chanderpaul this is not imaginary; it is ice-cold reality, So in light of these facts, if you were Chanderpaul would you retire?
Use logic, probability and good old commonsense. Windsor Park in Dominica is Chanderpaul’s happiest hunting ground, where he would be buoyed by full crowd support as an honorary Dominican. Isn’t this where he is most likely to end his 11-inning run drought?
Is it sentimental to point out the fact that: Chanderpaul is still the highest ranked WI batsman and has been for more than the last five consecutive years; that he has a proven record of improving with age, that he has a peerless record of high scoring in Dominica; that he enjoys vital fan support there because he always bats well there?
Furthermore, there is NO — I repeat NO, upcoming WI batsman — who, on the basis of his average in the 2015 WI season, deserves to supplant Chanderpaul in the WI team, especially not at Windsor Park in Dominica.
To my mind, both on the field and beyond the boundary, emotion and sentiment clearly have more influence on WI cricket than logic and fairness. But it is not Chanderpaul’s supporters whose thinking is based on sentiment. Indeed, dropping Chanderpaul on the eve of the Dominica test reeks of the worst kind of sentiment, the sort that is a slap in the face of logic and decency.
I am in Dominica for the test match and, for reasons made clear above, I wouldn’t have considered it worth my while if I had known that there would be no ‘Tiger’ to spearhead the WI batting lineup against the Aussie quicks.
Ramon Stonehouse

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A case for Chanderpaul

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