A small toast to Shiv
Woman's-eye View
The information below- dates, ages, scores - is generally factual, but I am really not trying to be very precise about those. I have never interviewed Shivnarine Chanderpaul; talking to someone is not the same as interviewing him or her with a tape recorder and notebook. I don't think the errors are important, and I hope the people whose names I've forgotten are not angry. I wanted to write this small piece about Shiv, and I wanted to write it now, because like many others, I have been thinking about him and wishing him well, soon. I told Shiv on the phone that I wanted to use my column this week to write about him and he said something that I took as a yes. I'm writing in this form rather than writing to him privately, because when and how he plays cricket are public business. Andaiye There are two abiding images of Shivnarine Chanderpaul. One is of him trudging off the ground, bat dragging, mouth pouting with the sullen rage of getting himself out when his score was in the seventies or eighties. The other is of him hurtling across the field, leaping from whatever his height is to wherever Curtly Ambrose or Courtney Walsh towers -leaping and grinning from ear to ear as he high-fived Ambrose or Walsh for getting a wicket. From there to here. Here where Shiv is not playing well; here where even when he does good he doesn't look good; here where there's too much gossiping about him, too many cries of 'I know exakly whuh wrong wid he', "He get rich too quick", "He loss interest in cricket" "Like he wash up at twenty-five". It's a hard thing to accept legitimate criticism when so much of the criticism about you is the harsh and unfair criticism of the disappointed. But both Shivnarine and the rest of us have to look honestly at what's up with him since what we all want is for him to get back where he was. And quick. From the beginning of Shivnarine's cricketing life, it was clear that here was a youth who was serious about his cricket and happy in his cricket. I have been trying to retrace his steps to see how he got from there to here. Shiv started playing cricket when he was eight years old, I think, playing with his father in the Unity Cricket Club. He told me that at that age, he used to get a game when one of the big ones didn't turn up, but later, when he was about ten years old, he started to open the batting for Unity. Then he went to Everest, where his father asked someone - I think Mr. Atwell - to look at him, and Mr Atwell told his father to take him to DCC. At DCC they put him in the nets, and then to open the batting in under-16 games. As I said, he was ten at the time. He was living at Unity, so his father or his Chacha would bring him down to play. Eventually, that became a problem, because both of them had to work. So he left the DCC and began playing with the East Coast Police. He played there from about the age of twelve to the age of fifteen. At fifteen, he had been playing cricket seriously and happily for nearly half his life. The next change came when Sheik Mohamed told his uncle and father to take him to the GCC. He was about fifteen. When he came to play in Georgetown he would stay at someone's house - he told me the names, but I don't remember. What I do remember was when I asked him if he used to go to school. He told me that especially during primary days, he was more out of school than in. But during secondary school, too, most of his time was spent playing cricket. He left school in Third Form when he was about thirteen or fourteen. (That's why, now, he tries to study, to pick up the skills he missed picking up when he was in his teens. One thing I've heard him say is how important it is for schools to make it possible for boys like him to get in their cricket and their schooling). 1992 he played for Guyana; he was seventeen. 1994 he was picked for the West Indies cricket team; he was nineteen. In his debut at Bourda, I'm told, there was an atmosphere which gave everyone goosebumps. Out came this thin-frame boy, swallowed by his hat and shirt collar. He held his bat, the ball hit the bat, the crowd roared. He hit the ball with the bat, a real hit; the crowd roared louder. He hit a four; the crowd went mad. He reached fifty; they invaded the field to salute their new hero. This was, as I've said, his first test series. In the fifth game of the series, the fourth in which he was playing, Lara broke the record while he held the fort at the opposite end, making 75 not out. Instant stardom. All this would make a nice story book about a young boy rising to fame and fortune like a meteor, but in real life, the young boy must have felt a little dizzy. From Unity to a motorcade through thousands upon thousands of cheering people is a long journey to take in a few months. I remember seeing part of that motorcade on TV, and seeing how they were linking Lara and Chanderpaul together as examples of Afro-Caribbean and Indo-Caribbean everything - The genius of our people, the unity of our races, the uniqueness of our multicultural culture, the symbols of our future, the ... whatever. It was in cricket, first, that we West Indians showed that we were equal to - even better than - the biggest and most powerful in the world, so now we made Lara - and Chanderpaul as the man who stood by him - into generals who had just won us a mighty war. At one function, Lara, Chanderpaul and the other dignatories were standing on a kind of balcony looking down at these thousands of people; it evoked memories of kings and other such waving to their adoring followers. Much later I learned that on that day, they suddenly asked Chanderpaul to speak and as he put it, "I couldn't talk. I freeze". He couldn't talk till a lady behind him whispered that he should say "I love all of you" and he said it. Like in a movie, or in a storybook. The movie script continued for a while; he played cricket, and he played it seriously and happily. Then somewhere along the line the plot changed, not just for Chanderpaul but for all of us. We can argue about when and where the slide started. And why. Where to locate the Kenya debacle? How to read Pakistan? What was happening with the battles for money, for power? But for an ordinary critic fanatic like me, looking on from the outside with only an occasional peep of inside info, it was in South Africa that whatever was growing on the inside began to be visible on the outside. It was in South Africa that we could all see a West Indies team creep out on the field with their tails between their legs, beaten even before a ball was bowled or a bat positioned. Swagger gone. The home series against Australia was a little better; Shivnarine himself said it's because it was at home. Red Stripe Bowl before New Zealand, and Busta Cup after, his play was kind of up and down; even when his results were good, he didn't look like he was playing well. Then came New Zealand, which was like South Africa. For me, there were three moments of real disaster - Pakistan, South Africa, and New Zealand - and as far as I remember, only three of the cricketers - Walsh, Lara, and Chanderpaul, were present at all three and lived with the fullest weight of the disappointment and despair and disgust of their fans, and the derision of old foes -lived with the one old foe whose glee was scarcely contained: "Oh, deardeardear', he would groan. "Another no ball from these hapless West Indians. Oh dear. Their batting has broken down completely." Oh man, you had been waiting for years to see us humbled. Let's draw parallels here between these three men - Walsh, Lara and Chanderpaul - who endured Pakistan, South Africa and New Zealand. Since then, Walsh has made us all proud with the perfect timing with which he broke the world record here in the West Indies against Zimbabwe; looking forward to that could have been motivation enough to find his courage back. But do not let us suddenly forget that in New Zealand he could scarcely get a wicket. Nor that the experts said "Drop he. He ova de hill." And what of the second man, Lara? Lara, we've heard, has gone to the US, announcing that he wouldn't return until he is mentally prepared. We've heard he will return for the England tour. Hear the voices, "We ain' need he. Dem odda boys playing nice." (In this Caribbean culture, we are too quick to raise people up and when we raise them, to drop them hard. Would any other cricketing culture refer to a former Test player as "The discarded West Indies bowler Ian Bishop?) Walsh, Lara. The third man is Chanderpaul. What has he done so far? During this recent tour he tried to continue playing although he already didn't have his heart in it, and then he was sent back to Guyana to rest. Rest, they told him. Rest till you feel well. Till when? And with what to help him to a full and quick recovery? Listen. Earlier I said that many had been waiting for the great West Indies to be humbled. And so we were - the West Indian people, the West Indies team, and individuals within the team. And yes, it was hard. And yes, it must be hard for the individual team members, especially those who had climbed high fast and fallen low, fast. It must be hard, for example, to dream a dream and live a dream from eight to twenty four years old and then just lose it. I think it must feel like fatigue syndrome, because there's a hole where the energy of the dream was. But hey, Shivnarine, the "I-can-hit-that-ball-where-I-want-to" confidence, the "I-can-reach-that-ball-before-it-hits-the boundary" hustle, the "I-will-occupy-this-crease-for-two-hours-more" stubbornness - all of this, the old seriousness and joy, all of it will come back. But there's really no way to plan how to bring them back. You just have to risk it, to trust that you built up talents and strength and courage in the years between when you were eight and when you were twenty-four that are still there, and that will make you equal to the challenge again. When you were a youth you were taken to the DCC ground and the GCC ground. Now is the time to take yourself to the next ground. Time to go out and prance and play and win before I get too old to stand in front of my TV by myself and give you your next standing ovation. Respect due.
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