Shivnarine Chanderpaul

Shivnarine Chanderpaul is a professional West Indies cricket player who plays for the West Indies national cricket team. He was the former captain of the team. In the West Indies team he is the first Indo Caribbean. He is left handed batsman and an occasional right arm leg break bowler.

Chanderpaul is reputed for being dogged and for his capacity to stay on the wicket for several hours. He has an unorthodox front-on batting stance for which he is infamous though while playing the ball he moves his body to a conventional position and this ability makes him an abundant scorer on both sides of the wicket.

Chanderpaul made his international debut in the test series against England in 1993. Chanderpaul made 75 runs not out in that match. In his first 18 Test matches Chanderapaul scored 15 fifties while in the 19th Test match he scored his first Test century. In 1996-97 while playing at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown Barbados in the third match of a five Test series against India he scored 137 not out. In first class cricket Chanderpaul’s best score is 303 not out against Jamaica for Guyana.

In March 2005 in the first Test against South Africa in Guyana Chanderpaul was made captain of the West Indies team after 7 senior players were rejected in a sponsorship row. To focus on the batting Chanderpaul resigned from the post of captain in April 2006.

In the Australian and Sri Lankan tours of the Caribbean in 2008 Chanderpaul was in excellent form. In the 2008 season he was ranked fifth in the Test batting rankings. While playing against Australia after the 2nd test was over he had almost reached 8000 Test runs.

Major achievements

Chanderpaul was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year 2008

Chanderpaul completed 8000 runs in Test cricket and was ranked 2nd in the ICC Test rankings and he became the fourth West Indian batsman to attain both of these.