Dear Editor,

Am I mistaken or is Shivnarine Chanderpaul using an extravagant batting stance in the current Test against England?

As far as I recall, Chanderpaul used this unusually widened technique, similar to Lambert’s, against Sri Lanka in the first Test last year, and he failed by his standards. He scored the fewest runs with the greatest effort, unlike later in the series when that flawed method was corrected.

Unsurprisingly, being that far out the leg stump causes Shiv to overcompensate in protecting both his middle and off stump. He has to move even more, and if one looks closely in his first innings thus far, he is actually jumping toward the offstump, and still is failing to adequately cover and effect offside strokes. Inevitably too, his offside strokes are likely to trickle down to the slips, as was evident. Moreover, not only is he the ideal candidate for the LBW decision, but he will fall victim to it, as happened.

There is no rocket science involved here: Shiv Chanderpaul has failed using that technique, and will continue to fail as long as he adopts that approach. It puzzles and even annoys me that one of the icons of world cricket with a sound record and reliable technique, is once again reverting to a flawed stance.

Would someone in management please present Shiv with stats and tapes concerning this unproductive batting stance he has adopted again?

Yours faithfully,
Romain Khan