Who else but chanderpaul

Everything about Chanderpaul is unique. From the dark patches below his eyes to his audacious front-on stance,Chanderpaul has defied conventions during his 17-year long career. But despite his differences from the herd,he built an innings on Sunday that will be looked at as a template by any batsman interested in building in an innings in the subcontinent.

With a hot-paced 167-ball 111 at the Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium on the first day of the three-match Test series,the 37-year old Guyanese scored his seventh century against India,24th overall and closed in on becoming only the second West Indian batsman to score 10,000 Test runs. In the process,he did what he does better than most on a cricket field — make life hell for the Indians. He walked in minutes after lunch with his side 75/3,but for crisis-man Chanderpaul,it was but another day in the office.

So with a typically Chanderpaulian innings — littered with equal measures of chance,effort and ugliness — he resurrected the side during the two sessions that he batted in. India took wickets,two in the first session,one in the second and two in the third — through their spinners Pragyan Ojha and Ravichandran Ashwin — but Chanderpaul transformed into an immovable object.

For 37 overs the Chanderpaul-Kraigg Brathwaite partnership frustrated the Indians and proved vital in West Indies not getting bowled out in the first three sessions.

While the score of 256/5 at stumps will tell MS Dhoni that he let the visitors slip away,what will really worry the Indian team management is the fact that it wasn’t just another West Indian batsman who scored a rescue century,it was Chanderpaul — the only player they could have done without.

Every time Chanderpaul notches a century early in a Test series,especially against the Indians,he ends up becoming the headline for the entirety of the tour. In 2002,Chanderpaul had welcomed the visiting Indians to his home town of Guyana with a 140 in the first Test,and he ended up scoring three more over the next four Tests. Apart from covering the Indians like a rash,Chanderpaul will also know that West Indies have never lost a Test to India in the past after he has reached the three-figure mark.

India have always been Chanderpaul’s bunny; he averages over 70 against them. In world cricket,only Gary Sobers,Viv Richards and Everton Weekes (eight tons each) have scored more centuries against India than the pious East Indian immigrant from Guyana. Being a Sobers-like presence in this team,Chanderpaul,who has played four Tests less than the rest of the squad put together,mentored a junior almost half his age.

Under Chanderpaul’s broad wing,Brathwaite played his natural game,dropping anchor for his patience-testing 212-ball 63. While most of Brathwaite’s runs came off the late cut to third man,Chanderpaul squeezed runs through all parts of the ground,and even took Sir Viv’s aerial route into the stands past long-on on a couple of occasions.

He brought up his fifty at the stroke of tea in just 77 balls — a terribly quick innings by his laggard standards — and the 144-ball hundred just before stumps. He pressed his forehead against the soil,kissed the earth gently. “Tomorrow I will fast all day for Lord Shiva,” he said at the press conference. On the cricket field at least,there will be another feast in store.