One cannot blame Virat Kohli if he feels old when India take the field against the West Indies in Dominica for the first Test. No, Virat, 34, doesn’t have complaints of dodgy knees yet, it’s just a unique record that he is set to achieve that might give him the feeling of having spent an eternity on the cricket field.
Virat, on Wednesday, will be playing against Tagenarine Chanderpaul, who is set to keep his place in the West Indies XI as an opener alongside captain Kraigg Brathwaite. Tagenarine, 27, is the son of former West Indies batter Shivnarine. Virat had played against Shivnarine too and thus will be part of a rare group of cricketers who have played against both father and son in Test cricket.
Virat, actually, is not the only one in the current Indian Test team who had played against Shivnarine, who wears the badge of being the West Indies’ second-highest Test run-scorer of all time, behind only Brian Lara, with 11,867 runs from 164 matches. Ravichandran Ashwin and Rohit Sharma had also shared the field with Shivnarine, now 48, in Test cricket.
Kohli had made his Test debut in Kingston on June 20, 2011, against a West Indies side that had the senior Chanderpaul. Ashwin and Rohit were not part of the Indian Test squad on that tour. Kohli again played against Shivnarine later that year when the West Indies toured India. This time, Ashwin was in the Test squad. In fact, the off-spinner was the Player of the Series with 22 wickets from three matches.
Rohit played against Shivnarine when the Windies toured India in 2013-14. Virat and Ashwin were also part of the Indian squad for the two-match Test series, which is better remembered for Sachin Tendulkar’s farewell at the Wankhede Test.
Talking about Sachin, the trio of Virat, Ashwin and Rohit are set to emulate the legendary batter in playing against a father and son pair in Test cricket. Sachin had played against Geoff Marsh on India’s tour of Australia in 1992 and against his son, Shaun, in 2011-12. While the 1992 series was Sachin’s first in Australia, 2011-12 was the last time the icon toured Down Under.
How many players have played Test cricket against a father and son pair? Well, a clear list is not available but there are similar instances from the past. Like the ones involving New Zealanders Lance and Chris Cairns.
While Lance, an all-rounder, played his last Test in 1985, son Chris, also an all-rounder, made his Test debut just four years later, in 1989. Many players, including Ian Botham, Wasim Akram and Allan Border, played against both Lance and Chris.
Shivnarine and Tagenarine too trigger similar records and Virat, Ashwin and Rohit are not the first ones who will play against the father and son. The Australian trio of David Warner, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon recorded the same feat when Tagenarine made his Test debut in Perth last year.
Starc, in fact, had become only the third bowler in history to dismiss both father and son when he removed Tagenarine on the fourth day in Perth. Botham and Akram had the distinction of dismissing the Cairns, Lance and Chris, in Tests.
Will Ashwin be able to join the list by getting Tagenarine, who boasts a Test double century after just six appearances, out?
