Australia are relying on their bouncier home pitches to try to dislodge one of Test cricket’s most immovable objects in the Test series against the West Indies, starting at the Gabba in Brisbane on Thursday (Wednesday night, east Caribbean time).
In the previous series between the teams in the Caribbean last year, Shivnarine Chanderpaul defied Australia’s bowlers for 1,000 balls over the three Tests.
In three of his six innings, they couldn’t get the dogged left-hander out as he accumulated 442 runs at an average of 147.33 with hundreds in the first and second matches, performances that contributed towards his award of the International Cricket Council (ICC) 2008 Cricketer of the Year award.
Australia still won 2-0, with one match drawn, but Chanderpaul’s resistance helped make it the most competitive contest between the teams for nine years.
Australia’s captain, Ricky Ponting, said yesterday the home pitches would help “a little bit more” to break through his defiance.
“The wickets we played on in the Caribbean just didn’t bounce at all,” he said. “The way he plays, with his technique, the ball bouncing on him will be something that he mightn’t cope with as well.”
He noted that Australia had four fast bowlers in their squad of 12 – left-armers Mitchell Johnson and Doug Bollinger, right-armers Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus – who “get a little bit more bounce out of the track”.
“Hopefully we can look like getting him out because we didn’t look like getting him out last time,” he said.
Only Johnson played in the series in the Caribbean. The other three will be new to Chanderpaul – and vice-versa.
Siddle, the tall Victorian who has come into the Test team in the past years, spelt out what the 35-year-old veteran of 121 Tests can expect.
“We’re all pretty aggressive bowlers, especially myself and Mitchell, so we’ll look to get at him and try to intimidate him,” he told the media after a practice session yesterday. “He’s got a different technique. The wickets are a lot different to what they would have played on just over a year ago in the West Indies.
He expected that the Gabba would offer “a little bit more” for fast bowlers in the early stages.
“That gives us a lot more options at getting him out because he is a very patient batter and has a very good eye and good concentration,” Siddle said.
“He’s going to be a tough nut to crack. In the last couple of years, he’s been in amazing form, and most teams he’s played have struggled to get him out,” he added. “Especially when he comes in the middle-order, the ball is a little bit old and it takes a bit of work.”
None of Chanderpaul’s 21 Tests hundreds has been in Australia where he averages 31.93 in nine Tests since his first in 1996. His 82 in the first innings of that series, at the Gabba, remains his highest score.
The pressure he was under as captain, following a strike by leading players for the tour of Sri Lanka three months earlier, was reflected in a disastrous series in Australia in 2005 when he averaged 14.5 in the three Tests.
Ramnaresh Sarwan at No.3, Chanderpaul at No.4 and all-rounder Dwayne Bravo at No.6 are the established middle-order batsmen for the West Indies.
Once they get rid of them, Siddle said it would expose what he called “a newer tail”.
“It’s a newer tail for them as a lot of their blokes haven’t played a lot of cricket and are new to the scene,” he stated. ‘”It’s something we will try and expose, definitely. We want to get them in as early as possible and hopefully get rid of them as early as we can, and give our batters a go.” (TC).
