West Indies legend, Shivnarine Chanderpaul has retired from all forms of international cricket, after having made his debut in 1994. One of West Indies’ batting maestros, Chanderpaul called it a day after not having featured for the national side for nearly a year.
Chanderpaul's career, that spanned over 22 years, saw him score 11867 runs in 164 Test matches at an impressive average of 51.37. He finished just 86 runs behind Brian Lara to remain the second highest run-getter for West Indies in Test cricket.
The last time Chanderpaul played for the national team was during the home Test series against England in May 2015. In three Test matches, Chanderpaul scored only 92 runs at an average of 15.33.
Following his poor showing with the bat, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) dropped Chanderpaul from the squad and was never recalled. Although the 41-year-old attempted to come back into the national side, the WICB never gave him another chance, despite West Indies’ deplorable performances in the longest format of the game.
The selection panel headed by former West Indies captain, Clive Lloyd had showed no intent of recalling the very experienced batsman. In the annual WICB contracts that were announced recently, Chanderpaul was not handed one and this probably helped the veteran batsman make his mind up about retiring.
Chanderpaul had continued playing domestic cricket in an attempt to make his way back into the squad. He played his last domestic match on January 20, 2016, when he played for Guyana in the Nagico Super50 One-Day competition. In his last first-class game, Chanderpaul scored 82 for Guyana against Trinidad & Tobago.
The left-handed batsman notified WICB formally via email to announce his retirement from cricket. The WICB acknowledges the invaluable contribution Shiv has made to the game globally, and we wish him all the best," WICB president Dave Cameron said.
Other than the obvious reason that he was not going to be picked up anytime soon, Chanderpaul would have decided to retire from cricket is to feature in the upcoming Masters Champions League (MCL), which requires participants to have retired from international cricket.
Chanderpaul was one of the most consistent batsmen that West Indies ever saw. With an unusual batting stance, he was unorthodox, yet effective. Bowlers struggled to get the man from Guyana out as he batted relentlessly.
His international record speaks for itself as the 41-year-old scored 20988 international runs in 454 matches at an average of 45.72. Chanderpaul has 41 hundreds and 125 half-centuries to his name. He was named man-of-the-match 27 times and man-of-the-series 11 times in his international career.
Brand-new app in a brand-new avatar! Download CricRocket for fast cricket scores, rocket flicks, super notifications and much more! 🚀☄️
