By 
Tagenarine Chanderpaul, the son of Former West Indies batter Shivnarine Chanderpaul has made a strong case to be included in the playing eleven for the first Test match by scoring a brilliant 119 off 293 balls against Prime Minister’s XI in the ongoing four-day tour match in Canberra on Thursday.
This knock would have certainly put Chanderpaul in consideration for the first Test match against Australia at Perth on 30th November as a vacancy for Kraigg Brathwaite’s partner has come up at the top of the order following the anti-doping ban handed to John Campbell.
The 26-year-old left-hander was the second-highest run-getter in the four-day regional competition of 2022, scoring 439 runs in five games at an average of 73.16 with two centuries for Guyana.
He also has an impressive first-class record, scoring 2669 runs in 50 games with five centuries. From early on, he had shown the ability to bat time, facing more than 150 deliveries in an innings three times in his first two seasons. However, it’s been this year that things have taken off: in 2022, he has an average of 89.50 including four centuries.
Meet the Chanderpauls 🤝 #PMXIvWI #AUSvWI pic.twitter.com/hSOJfFZSre
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) November 24, 2022
He has played with his father Shivnarine Chanderpaul 11 times in first-class cricket. The first time came in 2013 against Trinidad and Tobago (Tagenarine made 42 in the first innings, Shivnarine 108 in the second), and the last in 2018, which is when Tagenarine made his maiden first-class hundred.
He came through the ranks in the 2014 Under-19 World Cup in the UAE, where he scored 293 runs in a team which also featured West Indies players like Nicholas Pooran, Fabian Allen, Shimron Hetmyer and Brandon King. After that, he lost two years of his first-class career and did not play a single match from March 2020 until February 2022 because of Covid.
Earlier this year, for his impressive domestic form, he was rewarded with a West Indies A call-up to face Bangladesh A where he made an unbeaten 109 in the second four-day match.
While speaking to ESPNcricinfo, Tagenarine said, “I try and be myself. I can’t be him, so I can only be myself. Fingers crossed… I’ll try to get some runs if I’m selected.”
“He’s been knocking at the door since before Covid… two-and-a-half years passed with no cricket behind, then he started to get some cricket back. He started the first-class season without many runs, then he came to Florida and did some work with me. When he got back, he got a couple of hundreds and now he’s got selected to come here. Knowing the attack Australia has – these guys are relentless – if he can come here and do well, it will be a start to his career,” said his father Shivnarine Chanderpaul.
“I try to help him sometimes but he’s a little bent in his ways. He’ll seek me out for some help but then there’s a lot of times, like any kid, when you message him but he doesn’t message back. Unless he wants something! I’ll message [while] watching the game whenever he’s playing, I’ve seen what he’s doing, if he’s doing something he’s not supposed to be doing then I’ll message and say ‘this is what I’m seeing’ and he’ll not message back for two months after,” he added.
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