ON Tuesday May 19, head of the West Indies Cricket Board’s (WICB) selection panel, Clive Lloyd, in a letter to Shivnarine Chanderpaul, informed him of his axing from the training squad which is set to oppose Australia in a two-Test series from June 3.Chanderpaul, a dedicated servant to West Indies Cricket for the past 21 years, released the letter along with a conversation between him and the recently appointed Head Coach of the side, Phil Simmons, about his current situation.
The letter stated that Lloyd made several attempts to contact the left-handed batsman following the final Test against England which ended on May 4, to have discussions with him before he wrote the letter, but that was to no avail.
In the letter, Lloyd said, “Following your meeting with the coach, Mr Simmons on 4th May 2015, and his subsequent Whatsapp conversations with you, I tried to contact you on several occasions but you had already left for Guyana.”
He continued: “I rang your home telephone number in Guyana and left my details with a male member of the house requesting that you contact me, which he promised to do.
To date, you have not returned my calls and it is rather unfortunate as I did want to have the opportunity to have a discussion with you prior to writing this letter to you.”
“The Coach and the Selectors have studied your stats from the last 6 Test matches to date, 3 against South Africa and 3 against England. You batted 11 innings and had an aggregate of 183 runs at an average of 16.64. In determining the squad for the series against Australia, the selectors have decided to move on with younger players for the future. I therefore regret to inform you that the coach and selectors have decided to omit you from the squad for that series.”
“You have been a great player for the West Indies and have given excellent service to the game and to West Indies supporters all over the world. We hope that your skills will be utilised in the future and we wish you all the very best. We also wish to thank you for your contribution to this game which gave us all our upward mobility.”
The final paragraph of the letter could be interpreted as the WICB retiring Chanderpaul themselves as it states, “On behalf of the Selectors and the West Indies Cricket Board we wish you continued success. You have been a tower of strength to W.I. cricket and you will be remembered for being a true icon who has epitomised everything that is great about the wonderful game.”
The move sent waves through the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) and the entire Caribbean as people are of the view that the cricketer, the last of his generation, should be given a formal send-off as many great cricketers have received.