Roseau, Dominica: Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s hopes of a happy farewell were squashed after the veteran left-handed batsman was left out of the 14-man West Indies squad for the first Test against Australia starting here on Wednesday.
Chanderpaul, the second highest run-scorer for the Caribbean outfit, is only 45 runs behind that of Brian Lara’s 11,912 runs. But recently in his last series against England, he had a dismal average of only 15.33, reports the dailytelegraph.com.au on Sunday.
At 40, he’s not seen as part of the team’s future. The decision has been backed by fast bowling legend Michael Holding, while Lara supported Chanderpaul’s bid for a farewell Test series.
All the members of the squad, which was announced on Saturday, featured in the drawn Test series against England apart from the duo of wicketkeeper-batsman Shane Dowrich and Rajindra Chandrika — both scored brilliant 50s in last week’s tour match against Australia in Antigua.
“My request to finish up with the Australian series is not asking too much,” Chanderpaul told Caribbean media.
“It gives me a chance to acknowledge my supporters at home... I should not be pushed into retirement.”
Meanwhile, Australia head coach Darren Lehmann says the selectors will wait until early next week to make up their minds about Australia’s playing 11 for the first Test against the West Indies in Dominica.
The Aussies completed their only warm-up match of the tour here on Friday, a three-day game against a West Indies President’s XI that ended in a draw.
The wicket at Windsor Park in Roseau has traditionally favoured slower bowlers, meaning a dual spin attack of Nathan Lyon and the uncapped Fawad Ahmed is a possibility for the first of the two Tests in the battle to retain the Frank Worrell Trophy.
But the coach gave little away about the make-up of the XI.
“It’s going to have to be a late call. I’d love to give you the side earlier but it’s going to have to be a late call because this pitch here changed quite a lot in the 24 hours leading up to the tour game. So it’s going to be a really tight call either way we go,” Lehmann was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au on Saturday.
He gave a mixed report on the performance of Lyon and Ahmad — who bowled better than their combined match figures of 4/232 suggests.
“They bowled really good spells at certain stages and probably not as well as they would have liked, or the captain would have liked, at certain stages either,” said the 45-year-old.
