What happened to Chanderpaul?

Tony Becca, Contributor

When the quarter-final round of the ICC Cricket World Cup opens in Mirpur, Bangladesh, on Wednesday, the contestants will most likely be Australia and the West Indies, the winners of the last three tournaments, and winners of the first two, in all probability the winners from Group A, and the fourth-place finishers from Group B.

At the time of writing, 39 of the 42 matches in the preliminary round have been played, and although two of the three still to be played are from Group A, and only one from Group B, the qualifiers from Group A are already known.

Up to Friday night, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka had qualified from Group A with one match each to play while in Group B, South Africa, India, and England had qualified with the West Indies, barring a shocker in the final match of the preliminary round, expected to join them.

The Windies are on six points, the same as Bangladesh, but even if India beat the former champions, they will have to do so convincingly, very convincingly, to send Bangladesh through and to deny the West Indies.

According to the rules, if two teams in the group end up tied on points they will be separated, in order, by most wins, net run rate, the result of the match between the two, and with both teams likely to end up with three victories each, after piling up 330 for eight and dismissing the Netherlands for 115, after nailing Bangladesh for 58 and easing to victory at 59 for one, after South Africa scored 284 for eight and dismissed Bangladesh for 78, the West Indies are in a wonderful position.

Some surprise results

Although there have been some surprise results, including the defeat of England by Ireland and Bangladash, there were no surprises in the eight quarter-finalists, except possibly the West Indies.

The West Indies, although ranked behind Bangladesh at the start of the tournament, played true to form. They lost to South Africa and England, and defeated the Netherlands, Bangladesh, and Ireland while losing to the teams they were expected to lose to, and defeating the teams they were expected to defeat.

The West Indies, however, missed a golden opportunity to beat England - to knock England out of the tournament, to post four victories from five matches with today's clash against India still to come, and to finish higher up the table and thus avoid meeting Australia at the quarter-final stage.

The match has been one of the most exciting of the tournament to date, and followed England's roller-coaster performance in the tournament.

After comfortably knocking off the Netherlands' 292 in their opening match, England played to a high-scoring tie with India. They were beaten by Ireland who scored 329 for seven, squeezed through to win a tight match against South Africa, and lost to Bangladesh before pulling off a narrow win against the West Indies.

In Thursday's match, the West Indies dismissed England for 243 and looked set to run away with the contest after chipping to 58 without loss after 6.5 overs.

In a far from surprising twist, however, the West Indies collapsed. They lost four wickets for three runs in 20 balls to fall from 222 for six to 225 all out, and lost by 18 runs with 5.2 overs still to be bowled.

It appeared as if the West Indies management lost their marbles when the West Indies went to bat.

Chasing a victory target of less that five runs an over, Christopher Gayle handed them a glorious start, a start which called for nothing exceptional after that. Despite that, despite no need for fireworks, out went Daren Sammy, obviously to continue where Gayle left off, and he was followed by Daren Bravo, Devon Thomas, Ramnaresh Sarwan, and Kieron Pollard.

The West Indies batting order, for no reason whatsoever, read, Devon Smith, Gayle, Sammy, Bravo, Thomas, Sarwan, and Pollard with batsmen batting out of positions, with lower-order batsmen batting high up the order and before top order batsmen.

If that was bad, the omission of Shivnarine Chanderpaul was worse.

Disappointing

Chanderpaul has been disappointing in the tournament so far, but especially in a team of little quality, his talent, his record as a batsman in any form of the game, his reliability, lest we forget, his ability to turn things around, and his vast experience, should guarantee him a place on this West Indies team, be it a Test match or a one-day international.

He may not have changed the result of the game, but to leave Chanderpaul out of Thursday's match against England, out of an important match, was foolish, especially, whether we believe it or not, looking at the frailty of the West Indies batting.

The management of West Indies team may have been reading their own public relations which tells them how well the team have been playing because they defeated those teams which they were expected to defeat while at the same time losing to those teams which they were expected lose to, including England, who lost to Ireland and Bangladesh.

Chanderpaul is no pup, it is hardly likely that he is what he used to be, and next year he may be gone, or it will be time for him to go. Right now, however, on this team, in this World Cup, he, like Gayle, like Kemar Roach, is indispensable.