Chanderpaul's age-defying stunts

Over a career that lasted over 21 years, Shivnarine Chanderpaul played 57 Test series (excluding one-off-Tests), of which only in 16 did he average below 30. That, in a nutshell, illustrates his consistency, even when playing for a relatively weak team for much of his career. There were instances when he batted for himself, which comes through in the number of times he remained not out - among those who batted in the top seven, no one was unbeaten as often as he was (49 times).

Yet, there is no arguing with the sort of numbers he stacked up. Only six batsmen have scored more Test runs than he has, while among West Indians he is second to Brian Lara. More than anything, though, it's his consistency over a couple of decades that stands out: apart from a four-year period between 1998 and 2001, when he averaged 31, he hardly had a lean spell. His last six Tests (11 innings) fetched him 183 runs, which was the only other period when he didn't pull his weight in the side.

In the first third of his career, one aspect that Chanderpaul struggled with was in converting starts into centuries: after 49 Tests, he had two hundreds out of 24 fifty-plus scores. Through the rest of his career, though, he made up, scoring 28 hundreds in 115 matches - an average of one every 4.1 Tests.

The table above clearly shows his most prolific period was the eight years between 2007 and 2014: excluding that tour to South Africa at the end of 2014, Chanderpaul averaged 71.71 in 57 Tests, with 16 centuries during this period. In 22 series in these eight years, only three times did his average dip below 30; eighteen times he averaged more than 43, and 13 times more than 60.

All the not-outs helped his cause, but many of those were also because he often waged lone battles in difficult series, with little support from other batsmen. On the tour to England in 2007, for example, Chanderpaul's score sequence read thus: 74, 50, 116*, 136*, 70 - 446 runs at an average of 148.66. Despite those efforts, West Indies lost the series 3-0, with the second-highest contributor for them being Dwayne Bravo, with 291 runs at 41.57. On the tour to England in 2012, Chanderpaul scored 235 runs at 78.33, while in South Africa in 2007-08, he made 247 runs at 82.33. Marlon Samuels scored well in both those series, but West Indies still ended up losing.

In fact, no batsman has scored as many runs in defeats as Chanderpaul - his 5370 runs is 54 more than Lara's 5316 - but through most of his career, and especially between 2007 and 2014, the hopelessness of match situations hardly ever affected his run-scoring tendencies. During this eight-year period, he averaged 69.16, the best among all batsmen who scored at least 3500 runs during this period; Kumar Sangakkara comes in next with an average of 65, while no other batsman touches 60 during this period.

One of the features of Chanderpaul's career was that he preferred to bat at No. 5 or 6 till the end of his career, instead of moving up the order as many batsmen tend to do when they gain experience and expertise. Out of the 11867 Test runs he scored in his entire career, 9411 - or 79% - of his aggregate came when batting at Nos. 5 or 6. Only Steve Waugh, with 9919 runs from 221 innings, has scored more from those two positions, while these two are the only batsmen to play 200 or more innings from these positions. Among the current batsmen, Michael Clarke and AB de Villiers have strong numbers at those positions, but both have moved up the order after the retirements of Ricky Ponting and Jacques Kallis. Even after Brian Lara's retirement, though, Chanderpaul preferred to stay at No. 5, while others like Marlon Samuels and Darren Bravo took the No. 4 spot.

Chanderpaul didn't move up the order when Lara retired, but his batting certainly moved up a couple of notches. When Lara was around, Chanderpaul was already a solid middle-order batsman - he averaged almost 44 and scored 12 hundreds in the 84 Tests he played with Lara - but after Lara's retirement, Chanderpaul's batting really took off - in 80 Tests during this period, his average shot up to 61, and included 18 hundreds. Clearly, the added responsibility of being the best batsman of the team helped him lift his game even further. And while Chanderpaul added more partnership runs and century stands with Lara than with any other batsman, his average partnership with Carl Hooper, Dwayne Bravo and Ramnaresh Sarwan fetched more runs than his average partnership with Lara. (Click here for Chanderpaul's partnership summary stats.)

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of his career, though, is the runs he churned out even after the age of 35. While most other batsmen's run-scoring abilities diminish, Chanderpaul amassed 3291 runs after the age of 35, at an average of 57.73. His average is the second-best among batsmen who've scored at least 2000 Test runs after turning 35. That ability to churn out runs and hundreds even as the team performed poorly kept Chanderpaul going till the tour to South Africa late in 2014, when the runs finally dried up - in five innings he managed 91 runs; six more innings against England at home fetched only 92, prompting the West Indian selectors to drop him for the series against Australia, and look towards younger talent. He may not play a Test match again, but the standards he has set are so high that any younger player replacing him will struggle to measure up.

More numbers

771 Partnerships that Chanderpaul was involved in, in Tests. It is the highest among all batsmen; the next best is 738, for Rahul Dravid.

27,395 Deliveries faced by him in Tests, the fourth highest for any batsman, after Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Jacques Kallis.

8778 Chanderpaul's ODI aggregate, third among all West Indian batsmen after Lara (10,348) and Chris Gayle (9166)

40 Not outs for Chanderpaul in ODIs, next only to Carl Hooper's 42 among West Indian batsmen.

7 Centuries for Chanderpaul when opening the batting in ODIs. Only three West Indian batsmen - Gayle, Desmond Haynes and Gordon Greenidge - have scored more ODI hundreds when opening the batting.

1 Number of instances, in ODI history, of a batsman hitting a six off the last ball of the match when six were required for a win. He did it off Sri Lanka's Chaminda Vaas in Port of Spain in 2008, hitting a four and a six off the last two balls when West Indies needed ten for victory.

970 Chanderpaul's World Cup aggregate, third among all West Indians after Lara (1225) and Viv Richards (1013).