Judging the inimitable Chanderpaul
The oddities of West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul, with his extraordinarily open stance and his rituals on the cricket pitch, is dissected by Christian Ryan in the Nightwatchman
ESPNcricinfo staff
19-Mar-2013
The oddities of West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul, with his extraordinarily open stance and his rituals on the cricket pitch, are dissected by Christian Ryan in the Nightwatchman. Ryan attempts to give Chanders' methods a larger meaning.
Where it matters, in the heart, and head, he is the unprogrammable man. In his hotel room before batting he bats each ball in his head. After batting he often does not look at the tape. Yet he still watches the replay - in his head. Sportspeople sometimes claim they do this. Chanders honestly does it, every ball. Studying the tape would seek to make explicable, predictable, repeatable, something that should, morally, be left mysterious and free-floating, inside our heads - cricket - so that to see Chanders batting, though it may not involve notions like sexy, is to dream possibility, and be lifted out of our selves, by the simple act of watching