Shiv

I've always been a big fan of Shivnarine Chanderpaul. Far more so than other more fashionable West Indian batsmen, apart, of course, from Lara.

I'm not totally sure why, but it's got something to do with the contrast between his dissonant, ugly technique and the fact that, when you look past it, he's one of the classiest operators you could ever wish to see.

A particular personal memory is of seeing him leaving the Lord's pavilion after his memorable double of 97 and 128, both undefeated, in West Indies' defeat there in 2004. Close to, he looked like a lost schoolboy, the smallest and slightest professional sportsman I think I've ever seen, yet capable of spending most of the match seeing off Harmison, Hoggard, Flintoff, Jones and Giles.

With West Indies currently struggling to contain Sri Lanka in Chanderpaul's home country, Rahul Bhattacharya's typically erudite account of a visit to Chanderpaul's family at Cricinfo makes interesting reading.