GUYANA and West Indies cricket legend, Shivnarine Chanderpaul continues to perform brilliantly at all levels of the game. In 2012, he maintained the standards that had been set throughout his amazing cricket career for both Guyana and West Indies. At age 38, he has not shown any signs of slowing down. He was one of the leading batsmen in Test cricket, where he made an amazing 987 runs in 9 match¬es at the phenomenal average of 98.70 runs per innings. This included 3 Test centuries. The highest score was 203 not out against Bangladesh. Almost 20 years after he made his Test debut, his perfor¬mance on the field has not dimmed, but continues to reach higher levels. This is testimony to his commitment to the game, his dedication to training and fitness and his immense love for the game.
After the heroics in Dhaka, in the very next match, he made 150 not out at Khulna to help West Indies win the se¬ries 2-0. Shiv’s average in that series was a whopping 354 – the highest series average in the history of Test cricket and he won the Man-of-the-Series award. The other century in 2012 was 103 against Australia followed by 94 in Trinidad and 68 and 69. That won him yet another Man-of-the-Series award.
He went to England and continued the great ‘runs feast’ with scores of 87 not out and 91 in the Test match at Lord’s. This helped him to return to the Number 1 spot in the ICC Test Match Batting Rankings – a position he last held in 2008 when he won the ICC International Cricketer-of-the-Year award. He is the only West Indian to have won this presti¬gious award.
Overall at the end of 2012, Shiv stood supreme with a Test record of 10 696 runs at an average of 51.67 with 27 centu¬ries. This is the most runs by a Guyanese in the history of Test cricket and the second most by a West Indian, behind the great Brian Lara’s 11,953. Shiv has played 146 Test matches – which is a West Indies all-time record.
In regional cricket, he was equally dominant for Guyana, playing 3 matches in the West Indies Cricket Board’s four-day tournament and hit 270 runs at an average of 135 runs.
His first-class achievements for 2012 are 1 400 runs at an average of 93.33. He also played T20 matches overseas and was a leading member of the Uva Next team which won the inaugural Sri Lanka Premier League and qualified for the Champions League.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul is a living legend and like other outstanding Guyanese cricketers, including Clive Lloyd, Rohan Kanhai, Carl Hooper, Lance Gibbs,, he will continue to ensure that Guyana stays on the world map.
Chanderpaul was named the number one Test batsman in the world by the ICC in 2012, achieving ten thousand Test runs and he was fittingly honoured by all Guyanese, the Caribbean people and the rest of the world.