I am one of the old school cricket lovers. I also believe that it is not cricket for players to be whinging about being unceremoniously laid off when the obvious reasons may be age and diminished performance.
There are enough problems within the WICB to have Shivnarine Chanderpaul of Guyana bellyaching about being dropped from the West Indies team. Shiv needs to move on.
While a good and reliable player for many years, Chanderpaul was no Garfield Sobers, no Vivian Richards, no Clive Lloyd. Many times Chanderpaul played crucial and well appreciated innings. So he may have played while injured. Sob! sob! So what? He would have been paid.
Why diminish your contribution to the sport by trying to hold on batting long after the umpire named Age has left the grounds for his cup of tea?
Age 42 in office administration is considered borderline “young.” In competitive sport, especially in cricket, 42 is recognised as retirement time unless one is still miraculously scoring effortless centuries.
Chanderpaul’s cricketing style does not suit the moneymaking IPL or he could have fitted in there. Even there, I am yet to observe players who are long in the tooth. Chris Gayle is in his late 30’s but Gayle is highly adapted to fast and furious scoring.
What is Shiv going to do? Is he going to sue for wrongful dismissal? In any event Shiv has a young son who is moving up in the rankings. Maybe Fazeer Mohammed could have a gentle word in his ear.
Lynette Joseph
Diego Martin