Hard to find words to describe Shiv

St. John’s Antigua - West Indies captain Ramnaresh Sarwan whose century led

his team in saving the Second Digicel Test was at a loss for words to describe

the batting performance of Man of the Match Shivnarine Chanderpaul who scored

unbeaten knocks of 107 and 77 in the two innings he batted in the game.

Ramnaresh Sarwan celebrates his match saving century - (Brooks La Touche Photography)

“It’s very hard to find words to describe him. Over the last three years he has

shown his consistency and he keeps better with age and it is really good for us

as a team and hopefully we as batters can learn from him,” Sarwan said of his

Guyana and West Indies teammate who scored a total of 184 runs without being

dismissed in the match.

Sarwan, who himself made impressive contributions of 65 and 128 said that the

plan on the last day, as they needed to survive the entire day to save the game,

was to bat session by session.

“Our focus was to take every session as it is, we needed to survive but at the

same time we needed to be positive and then we would have taken it from lunch

time and then analyse it at tea time, all in all we just wanted to be positive

throughout the day,” the stand-in West Indies captain said at the end of the

game.

His opposing number, Australian captain Ricky Ponting saluted the efforts of the

Guyanese duo.

“We had every opportunity to win a Test match today, obviously Ramnaresh and

Shiv played very well in that partnership in the middle of the day that we couldn’t

break, it was the difference between us winning and a draw,” Ponting said at

the post-match presentation ceremony, where Chanderpaul was presented with

his Digicel Man of the Match medal by West Indies Cricket Board president Dr.

Julian Hunte.

The third and final Digicel Test of the three match Digicel Test Series commences

on June 12th at the Kensington Oval in Barbados. West Indies captain Chris

Gayle who is suffering from a groin injury, which prevented him from playing in

the First and Second Digicel Tests is expected to play in that game and return to

his usual opening slot.

Chanderpaul who said after the game that he has a minor thigh strain is also

expected to be fit and ready for that crucial game when the West Indies will be

looking to level the series.

(COURTESY-: digicelcricket.com)