On Chanderpaul

If there is one batsman in the world without flair, its Shivnarine Chanderpaul. Chanderpaul has shown us that technique or no technique, if you’re good enough, you can make it. Chanderpaul has probably the worst looking stance amongst the batsmen in world cricket. West Indies is known for producing weird but exemplary talents - Lara had (has) an odd backlift.

Chanderpaul has a very open stance. This has some advantages and some disadvantages. The open stance means that he needs to get that much more side on in the same time. This results in lots of shuffling and unnecessary movements. But this does not affect his game in any way. Another more significant disadvantage is that sometimes, Shiv might find it a tad difficult to get his body right behind the ball and close that perilous gap between bat and pad. His angle at the crease also results in the opening of the face of his bat. Fortunately, this has been well controlled by him.

There are also advantages. He can see the bowler approaching him with a little bit more ease than the conventional batsmen. Also, - although this is not related to his stance – he has the added advantage of being a left handed batsman. He gives himself a little more room than the other batsmen and this results in anything going a little bit away from him - even with just the angle – becoming a wide ball. Thus, he favours playing square and just behind square on the off side. He also can sway away from those balls which are almost bouncers.

One thing that has to be mentioned is that Chanderpaul is also lucky to have been born in Guyana. Had he played in India, he would have had to go through the staunch Indian coaching system where if you are not text book, you are just not good. Dhoni is probably the only exception to this undesirable rule.

He has scored two hundreds in the present series against England apart from a few other pretty useful knocks. Chanders, keep going.-BS