Lancs caught out over Shiv gamble
PAUL Allott admits signing Shivnarine Chanderpaul last season was a gamble which didn’t pay off for Lancashire.
The West Indies Test legend scored just 257 runs in the Specsaver County Championship in eight matches – and spent the second half of the campaign out of the side – as the Red Rose were relegated.
He was one of several batting problems Lancashire suffered this summer, with Haseeb Hameed also woefully out of form and Liam Livingstone struggling to cope with maintaining his form and captaining the side.
And with Keaton Jennings also missing a chunk of the campaign following his England Test recall, what at the start of the season looked like a top six full of runs, ended with Lancashire dropping into the Second Division despite having the top two leading wicket-takers in the top flight in Tom Bailey and Graham Onions.
Chanderpaul signed a one-year deal with the county after impressing in 2017, averaging above 50 in first-class cricket with 819 runs and three centuries as the Red Rose finished second.
It was a continuation of his s econd spell at the club, having played for Lancashire in 2010 when he scored close to 700 runs in just eight matches.
But at the age of 43, time finally caught up with Chanderpaul last season, and Lancashire’s director of cricket Allott admits they knew that was a possibility when they signed him for 2018.
“There were two ways Chanderpaul could have gone at his age – and you know when you sign older players, especially at his age, there is a slight gamble,” Allott told M.E.N. Sport. “In 2017 he scored 800 runs. There is going to be a breaking point somewhere when he doesn’t score runs and, unfortunately, it was at the start of the 2018 season.
“That was a bit of a gamble that didn’t pay off. Having said all that, we thought we had enough cover. But when you have other batsmen not scoring runs and batsmen being taken away from you for England Lions cricket – sometimes being selected in the squad and not playing – it starts to bite you.
“The Chanderpaul scenario – any runs he scored were going to be a bonus, and he didn’t get them.”