– Back to stake claim in Inter County Tourney

By Sean Devers
AT 33 and with five Test matches under his belt, Rajendra Chandrika, aka Ginger is hoping to do well enough to stake a claim for selection for the Guyana Harpy Eagles’ last three matches in this year’s regional first-class tournament to be played in T&T and Guyana.

The stylish right-handed batter from Enterprise, on the East Coast of Demerara, who played his last first-class match for Guyana in 2017, is named captain for the GCB’s Select X1 for the four-team senior inter-county competition which is scheduled to commence today at the Providence Stadium and the Enmore Community Centre ground.

“Once I do well and score big I would love to play for my country again, but I will leave everything to the selectors.

I came back to play this tournament because I was just giving it another shot because of my love for the game” said Chandrika, who made his List ‘A’ debut at Enmore against Jamaica for the West Indies U-19 in 2007.

The Everest batter made his first-class debut for Guyana against Trinidad and Tobago in Antigua in June 2010. He also played for the West Indies ‘A’ team, the Sagicor High Performance Centre, the Leeward Islands and the West Indies Cricket Board President’s X1.

Playing for the West Indies Cricket Board President’s XI, Chandrika scored 74 against Australia in a warm-up match at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua in May 2015.

His performance in that game caught the attention of many and he was immediately rewarded with a place in the Test side. He made his Test debut against Australia in the second Test after Marlon Samuels was ruled out with an injury.

It is often said numbers are not always a true indication of someone’s ability, with Carl Hooper quickly coming to mind and so it is with Chandrika, who experienced a horror start to his Test career.

On his debut, Chandrika became the third West Indian player to out double duck on their Test debuts but he was the only specialist batter to do so since the others were Alf Valentine and Alzarri Joseph. England’s Graeme Gooch and Sri Lankan Marvan Atapattu also bagged a pair on test debut.

Chandrika played five Tests, batted 10 times, scored 140 with a highest score of 37. His average of 14.00 is the lowest for a specialist batter who had played at least five Tests.

“That was a tough tour because my father was sick and passed away during that tour. So it did affect me mentally and that was my biggest challenge” disclosed Chandrika, who played 60 first-class games scoring 2,682 runs and made a century and 13 fifties with a highest score of 145.

But in 2016, Chandrika played two more Tests against India but, unlike Gooch and Atapattu whose careers flourished, the Guyanese was dropped at 26 and returned to the reginald scene with his confidence battered to a pulp.

In the 2017 regional tournament, Chandrika suffered a poor season and was dropped. He played two first-class games for the Leewards the next year — against Guyana and Barbados, getting low scores in both matches and at 28, his first-class career was over.

He continued to play in Canada, New York and Trinidad with plenty of success but he was never called by the Guyana selectors.

“I didn’t stop playing in Guyana, I was not getting no calls so I went to play overseas. It always feels good to be playing at the Inter-county level” concluded Chandrika, who seemed destined for greatness when he burst on the scene at the youth level in the early 2000s.

This Inter-County tournament is being used to select the Guyana squad for the final three rounds and could be the platform for the resurrection of Chandrika’s career, once he can make a few ‘big’ scores and prays for the rain to stay away for the duration of the tournament.