Young Chanderpaul relishes regional experience

National opener Tagenarine Chanderpaul says playing in the current regional Four-Day competition has done wonders for his game, claiming that he has learnt so much just by observing the seasoned players in action.
The soft-spoken lefthander, in his first season at the senior level for Guyana, has chalked up 176 runs from four matches at an average of 22, with a topscore of 42 against Trinidad and Tobago.

He is the second highest runscorer for Guyana, only behind Leon Johnson with 299 runs. Johnson is the competition’s second highest runscorer behind Devon Smith of the Windward Islands with 456 runs.
Young Chanderpaul, during an interview with this publication on Friday, said the experience gained so far has been tremendous, and he is looking forward to using it to improve his game.
He said, “The experience has been good so far, I’ve learnt a lot and I’m looking to use what I’ve learnt to improve my game.” While the youngster is pleased with the knowledge gained so far, he is concerned that he has not been able to build on the many promising starts during the tournament.
“And that’s something I would certainly like to rectify going forward. I’ve been getting some starts, but what I have to do now is build on those starts and spend a longer time at the crease,” Tagenarine admitted.
History
Tagenarine and Shivnarine created history, becoming the first son and father pair to play together at the regional level when they turned out against Trinidad and Tobago in the last round.
During the course of the game, Shivnarine notched up his 65th First-Class ton, narrowly missing out on leading Guyana to a come-from-behind win.
Like his father, Tagenarine is a dogged batsman, but he did not allow that to affect him during the limited overs version of the Guyana Cricket Board Inter-County competition earlier this year. As a matter of fact, the young batsman concentrated on the basics: play every ball on its merit, pick the gaps, rotate the strike and score the occasional boundaries.
The result was the competition’s only century. He was also the leading run-scorer with 170 runs from three innings.
Tagenarine, who turns 17 in May, earned his maiden call up to the senior Guyana squad, after representing the youth team once at the Under-15, Under-17 and Under-19 levels.