Chanderpaul: ‘A focus of burnished steel’

Dear Editor,

Shiv Chanderpaul has just passed 10,000 runs in Test cricket, and there have been, and will continue to be, many plaudits from a variety of sources. It is not often that I prefer to use someone else’s words, but in offering my congratulations to Shiv, I will quote from an article by Rob Steen intituled: ‘The Epitome of Selfless Striving’, which appeared on April 27, in EspnCricinfo.com, and which has the following introductory sentence, “Chanderpaul has embodied many of the most important least appreciated qualities demanded by his complex profession.” Mr Steen is a sportswriter and senior lecturer in sports journalism at the University of Brighton. The piece was very long but I have chosen the first two paragraphs:

“The ugliest batsman of them all? The most anonymous top-ranked cricketer ever? The most patient, obstinate, cussed, indomitable, atypical sportsman of the third millennium? The ultimate limpet? Shivnarine Chanderpaul may well tick all those boxes. What’s not to love?

“The smile is as sweet as the sugar from his native Demerara, the eyes a gentle Asian brown, the physique and body language about as menacing as Mickey Mouse in pyjamas.

Behind such frail, uncommonly deceptive features, though, lies a focus of burnished steel, the sort of concentration and aversion to risk normally found among chess grandmasters and a heart to turn even Asians green.”

What more can I say?

Yours faithfully,
C E Housty