By Sean Devers
WHEN Tagenarine ‘Brandon’ Chanderpaul scored his first Test Century in only his third Test yesterday against Zimbabwe, he created history with his illustrious father Shivnarine as the only Father/Son West Indian pair to score a Test century.

When the 26-year-old Guyanese made his test debut in Australia on November 30 he joined his father as the 19th Father and Son and third from the West Indies to play Test Cricket.
Shiv joined West Indian fathers George Headley and Sir Everton Weeks with sons who played Test Cricket.

All three of the dads are among the eight West Indian batters with a Test average of over 50 with the late great Headley at top of that list with an average 60.83 with 10 centuries in 22 Tests.
Shiv’s 11,867 runs is only behind Brian Lara’s 11,912 among West Indian batters and it’s unlikely that those stats will be bettered by any other West Indian.

Young Chanderpaul, with an unbeaten 101 also became the 15th Guyanese batter to score a Test century since Robert Christiani with his 107 against India in 1948 on West Indies’ inaugural tour to sub-continent.

Ironically, ‘Tage’ is first Guyanese to reach three-figures in a Test match since his father, who took 19 Tests to register his maiden hundred, scored the last of his 30 tons, an unbeaten 101 against Bangladesh in September 2014 in St Lucia.

Tagenarine, who made his First-Class debut against the Leewards in Antigua in 2013, has reached the boundary ropes 10 times and cleared it once from the 290 balls in his unfinished 221-run opening stand with his Captain Kraigg Braithwaite who has 116.

Playing for Guyana in a First-Class game against Jamaica in 2017, the 42-year-old Shiv scored a half-century after his 20-year-old son Tagenarine had reached 50 at Sabina Park. The last time that happened was in 1931 when George Gunn and his son George Vernon scored hundreds in a match for Nottinghamshire.

The only other time a father and his son played together in the history of Regional First-Class cricket, which began in 1865, was when Sir Leary Constantine and his Father Lebron played in 1922.

The elder Constantine made his final appearance for Trinidad against Barbados in British Guiana at the age of 48 playing alongside his son Learie who had just turned 21.

The following Guyanese who have scored Test centuries; Robert Christiani, Bruce Pairaudeau, Basil Butcher, Rohan Kanhai, Joe Soloman, Roy Fredericks, Alvin Kallicharran, Clive Lloyd, Leonard Baichan, Faoud Bacchus, Clayton Lambert, Carl Hooper, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Tagenarine Chanderpaul.

Bachian, Bacchus, Lambert, Soloman, Christiani and Pairaudeau only managed a century once. Baichan scored his century on debut against Pakistan but only played two more Tests after that.