Friday, March 9, 2007

Why is Chanderpaul openeing?

The third strongest link to WI team in ODIs after Lara and Sarwan is Shivnaraine Chanderpaul.

He can stick around the wicket and make the opposition try and try to get him out, but he won't budge.

He needs to come one, two or three down - whatever - but he should not open.

In the world where scores of 350 are not defendable anymore, openers have to be the ones who will give flying start. Shivnaraine Chanderpaul, with all due respect to his talent and abilities, is no Shahid Afridi or Chris Gayle. he is the glue that gets stuck to the wicket. He is Rahul Dravid of WI, not Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

West Indies have to look at someone who can smash the bowlers all around the park just like Chris Gayle does.

I feel that while it is essential to have players throughout the batting line up who can smash their way around, it is all the more critical for the opener's slot.

WI cannot and should not depend only on Gayle for big starts.

Look at India - they have so many openers in the team (all of whom can whack the ball) that they have another problem (of plenty), but essentially they are OK in their basics as they have openers to give them the big and fast starts.

IMHO, Shiv has got to go down the order.

C'mon guys - this is the big one - The World Cup - you don't want to be conservative and traditional - just go there and smash your way to the victory!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ranjeet, you have a lovely blog here! :-)

Till a few years ago I watched each and every match 'religiously' ! :-)
Unfortunately, the matches these days are missing authenticity:-(

I am forwarding your blog to some of my friends who are an ardent cricket fans. :-)

Also, thanks for adding my blog in yr list of favourite blogs:-) A very kind gestrure of yours! I am honored!

Ranjeet said...

Hey Abhijit,

The pleasure is all mine, and thanks for forwarding the blog to your friends.

I agree with you that since the fixing saga, a lot of people have lost faith in the game, but not me! :-)