It must be hard for the first West Indies Test team to tour Australia in seven years to play in the shadow of events that took place before most of them were born.
Little wonder that they seldom carry themselves as if they believe they are good enough. Every one of their recent achievements in the Test arena carries double merit, for it carries double weight.
The talk around the current Test series is overwhelmingly, sometimes suffocatingly, nostalgic: fearsome pace batteries, charismatic leaders, years of supremacy over Australia in Australia.
Ian Bishop, Carl Hooper and Brian Lara are on hand, though Michael Holding didn’t make it further than a promotional video. The lopsided contest in Perth has quickly given way to reminiscence. The West Indies are still represented by names like Lloyd, Richards, Roberts, Garner, Greenidge, Haynes, Richardson and Marshall.
And Chanderpaul.
In the presence of Tagenarine Chanderpaul at the top of the West Indies batting order, a bridge is formed between past and present, as if the retro flavour that pervades all West Indies series has been given living substance. Tagenarine’s father Shivnarine scored nearly 12,000 runs in 164 Tests at an average of more than 50, so that is some substance.
Tagenarine Chanderpaul hits the deck.Credit:Getty
An immense presence belying his slight frame, he played his last Test in 2015 and his last first-class match in 2018, so for a while a unique father-son international combination was at least theoretically possible.
When the son took guard in Perth on yesterday, double-vision might have resulted. The apple has fallen barely a bat length from the tree. In his batting style, the left-handed Tagenarine could easily be the winner of a Shivnarine lookalike contest. For a moment, search parties were going out for the sons of Richards, Greenidge, Lloyd, Roberts and the rest. Fantasy cricket for oldsters.
That said, the here and now belongs to the son. Australia had scored 598 runs and declared at their leisure. In a day of exhibition-style batting, Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith had clocked up double-centuries, before Travis Head was on track to make a hundred off as many balls before showing a little bit of respect for Test cricket and getting himself out one run short.
So uneven had the match become as a contest, it was turning into another of those days to fill with memories of Calypso summers past. Honestly, Australia used to have to overcome an inbuilt inferiority complex when they played the West Indies.
But Shivnarine Chanderpaul never had to open the batting against a purring pace attack of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Patrick Cummins.
With his front-on stance, Chanderpaul fils countered the short-pitched assault just like pere, arching his back to let the steeplers pass by his nose. Cummins let one angle towards the leg side and Chanderpaul assisted it on its way over the fence.
When Hazlewood overpitched, Chanderpaul drove him through mid-on in a deadset replica of … and did we ever tell you about the day Shiv smashed Australia for 71 runs off 67 balls in a Test in Sydney before Shane Warne spun one out of the rough … well, enough already.
In the final session, Tagenarine and his captain Kraigg Brathwaite brought up a half-century partnership against the new ball.
It wasn’t much against a deficit of nearly 600, but these West Indians are trying to pass two tests: one being posed by a confident Australian opposition on home soil, and an arguably bigger one put to them by their own paternal giants, who grow larger and more vivid the further their deeds recede into the past.
Nobody would envy the current generation confronting these Australians, in these conditions, in this mood. Even fewer would envy them having to face the overpowering judgment that they can never measure up to their cricketing fathers, who happen to be gods.
This Chanderpaul, at least, has been given his literal chance, which nobody would love more than his father.
