Dear Editor,
Congratulations to our Shivnarine Chanderpaul on his rise to the top of the world ratings.
While Chanderpaul has been our most reliable batsman over the last 14 years it has become clear to me that this young man no longer plays for his team and only plays for himself and his world rating. Especially in our one-dayer and 20/20 matches when the West Indies are in dire straits for runs – boundaries – Chanders still continues to nudge the ball around for a single, ambles down to the other end, leaving the scoring and chance of being out to the other batsman.
Mr Editor, we have lost too many matches and series because of this ploy.
My appeal to the WI selectors therefore is not to pick the Tiger in these limited over matches. Let him play in Test matches only.
Yours faithfully,
Randolph Joseph Eleazar
I fully agree with the letter writer. In fact a few weekends a ago we were listening to cricket commentators debate this very issue about Shiv. It was on the occasion of the English 20/20 finals day. Shiv’s team Durham was in the semis and he played one of the strangest innings ever contributing to the team losing the game. This is of course more acute than a 50 over games where time is of the essence and simply ending the innings not out after wasting more than 50 deliveries does the team no good.
This does not take anything away from his previous achievements, but where time is of the essence Shiv is not your man. In the current WI line-up we perhaps don’t have a choice because the rest of the team is piss poor! Had we a choice ……
Dear Editor,
In Relation to the writer suggesting that Chandra should only be consider for test matches,and citing Chandra as one of the reason for W.I. losses in many matches for the limited overs version of the game, I can only assumed that the writer has very limited knowledge of the game,whether on it’s history or tatics.
Also he is blaming Chandra for playing for himself and not the team.
It would take a lot to convince this writer,that his accusation is without any merit,so I wouldn’t waste my energy and he should not follow the actual cricket alone, but do some research and follow actions by the administration.
All I would like to remind this gentleman of in a West Indies or any World class team, you follow instructions from your team/management, coach and most important, captain, and if these personnel can’t do their job and give proper instructions to a world class player,don’t blame the player.If they did and he didn’t follow it,well then I don’t see why they continue to play him for so much matches.
It’s hard to explain this,but could this gentleman recall that Chandra had be dropped from the West indies team when he was going through a bad patch. Would the writer honestly say that Chandra with his onorthodox stands,if he was performing so well would have been in the W.I. team today ? Does this writer know that Chandra has the 3rd fastest test century in 66 balls against the present world champions.
Please don’t blame Chandra if he is playing for himself. Blame him if he was giving instructions and didn’t follow it and please blame the right personnels who are like square peg in a round holes. Have you ever put a thought on Chris Gale resignation??????????????.
Thanking You
Sheik Mursalene Mohamad
Florida USA