Chris Gayle
T20 cricket will not go away like some purists of cricket have expected. It’s faster, more intense, and for the average watcher, all-a-round more entertaining.
The biggest proponent of this big-hitting genre of the game has been the West Indies’ very own Christopher Henry Gayle.
Gayle has been dominant, setting benchmarks in almost every aspect of batsmanship in the T20 game with heirs to the throne well off the pace.
To date, the big left-hander has been at this T20 game for 15 years.
In those 15 years, his contribution to the growth of the sport has been immense.
Along the way, he has played in 404 games, scored 13,296 runs, smashed 22 centuries, 82 half-centuries and boasts a healthy strike rate of 146.94.
There is nobody close to that kind of body of work and Gayle should be proud.
He’s lasted longer than many thought he would or could and he may have more big innings left in him.
In fact, his last outing for the Chattogram Challengers in the Bangladesh Premier League including a typically destructive 64.
But the truth is, the Universe Boss is ageing and while runs have still come they are few and far between.
I was one of the few who felt Gayle should have been allowed more Test cricket before that option was taken off the table.
I believed that Gayle’s late, but growing maturity, meant he would have been dominant in Test cricket, just as he has been over the last 15 years in T20s, but that horse has gone through the gate and alas, there is nothing more for Gayle to prove.
I learned with deep concern earlier this week that Gayle would be turning out for the St Lucia Zouks in the Hero Caribbean Premier League and while that means I will get to see him live whenever the CPL gets the go-ahead to start, I can’t help but feel I will be disappointed.
The Chris Gayle who I saw at the last CPL, while still a most-impressive cricketer, is nowhere near the man I had been seeing over the last 15 or so years.
There was still the worry for the opposition that he would get off and they would have hell to pay, but there seemed some unsaid secret. The whispers said, ‘yeah he’s dangerous, but he’s not likely to be today’.
I do not want to abide by that. I do not want to see a man I considered a hero in the wake of the retirement of absolute legends like Brian Charles Lara and Shivnarine Chanderpaul, be reduced to being a mere mortal.
His T20 average of 38.20 is quite brilliant, but it used to be higher.
Bowlers are still afraid of him, but they used to be more scared.
Teams used to plan for him as the key to beating a team he played on, they still do but now bank on success.
There has been much talk of Gayle retiring since he seemed to suggest he would do just that after his last World Cup in 2019. It hasn’t happened and while I am glad to have seen some more of this most explosive of enigmas, I am also saddened because I wanted him to go out at the top of his game.
I did not want to see a day when an available Chris Gayle does not make a West Indies T20 side. He is too good a player for that. Yet that day has come.
Two seasons ago, I watched at Sabina Park as Oshane Thomas bowled a quick length ball that crashed into Gayle’s pads. It was the first ball of the evening and my hero, though he played for the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots at the time, was sent packing, beaten for pace.
Gayle is blessed with great hand-eye coordination, but Thomas’ delivery said to me, that is going.
There was a time it didn’t matter how quick you were. Gayle would find a way to hit you to all parts of the ground. That day is past.
Now there have been a number of athletes who have waited too long to call it a day for varying reasons.
For some, they needed those last few paychecks to guarantee their futures, while others just loved the game they had dedicated their whole lives to so much, that walking away was like kicking a heroin habit, nigh on impossible.
I believe Gayle falls into the latter of the two categories. Financial future already secure, I believe Gayle is playing on for the love of the game.
But maybe he should consider something else as well. Maybe he should consider his legacy and his health.
I’ve watched Gayle unable to train because of a nagging back problem. I saw him chase down a cricket ball at Sabina Park and not be able to come out to bat until much later in the innings.
His diminishing ability and health hurts his image but it also hurts his team. Already Gayle’s stocks around the world have plummeted and he is not so sought after anymore.
Before it gets to the stage where he is not wanted by anybody, I ask that my hero calls it a day.
I ask that Cricket West Indies (CWI), as soon as it is safe to do so, give the Universe Boss, a fitting send-off.
Paul-Andre is the Managing Editor at SportsMax.tv. He comes to the role with almost 20 years of experience as journalist. That experience includes all facets of media. He began as a sports Journalist in 2001, quickly moving into radio, where he was an editor before becoming a news editor and then an entertainment editor with one of the biggest media houses in the Caribbean.
'CPL will miss fans'- but COO Hall encouraged by increased global viewership demand
Caribbean Premier League (CPL) COO Michael Hall has revealed the competition’s delight at increased interest in viewership demand, despite the scaled down nature of this season’s tournament.
With the region and globe disrupted by the effects of the coronavirus this year’s edition of the tournament will be held in Trinidad and Tobago. The event, which will get under way August 18, will be played in a bio secure environment and without fans, which Hall admits is a big challenge.
“We will be no different than any other sporting event that has taken place since the pandemic. Is it going to be the same, ‘absolutely not’,” Hall told the Mason and Guest radio program.
The CPL has throughout the years being known for vociferous fans, which some speculate might affect the intensity level of the cricket played.
“I don’t know how much of a factor (no spectators) that is in players performances. I’ve always heard that the really great athletes shut out the crowd and focus, so I don’t know. But are we going to miss the fans, absolutely there are the lifeblood of the tournament,” he added.
“We are still having the tournament though, fans or no fans. I know for a fact based on feedback. Based on feedback, these are things that we track, the anticipation for our global viewing audience has almost trebled. There have been people reaching out to ask where we can watch it, saying we are dying to watch it and that is only good for the league.”
The CPL will be the first T20 tournament played since the start of the pandemic.
Panel makes tough cuts to Ultimate XI T20 bowlers, no Badree
There is no place in the final XI set of SportsMax Ultimate XI T20 bowlers for a man who, at one time or another, was the world’s foremost T20 bowler after a panel of experts had to make tough choices to reduce a shortlist of the best in the format of all time.
A panel made up of cricket umpire Chris Taylor, former Australian cricketer and commentator Tom Moody, and regional commentator Vernon Springer, today on the SportsMax Zone, had to bring a not-so-short shortlist of 17 bowlers down to six for final discussion tomorrow where another panel will pick three for SportsMax’s Ultimate XI T20 team.
Samuel Badree will not be part of that discussion.
The team is picked through a combination of voting among fans, the panel, and the SportsMax Zone’s team.
Fans vote online, with their collective decision amounting to 35% of the vote, while the Zone team’s votes amount to 25%. The panel has the lion’s share of the percentage with their vote counting for 40%.
Today, the panel had to decide among a group made up of Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga and Ajantha Mendis; Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi, Umar Gul, Saeed Ajmal, Sohail Tanvir and Wahab Riaz; Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan; Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan; West Indies’ Sunil Narine, Badree, and Dwayne Bravo; South Africa’s Imran Tahir and Dale Steyn; India’s Jasprit Bumrah; along with Australia’s Dirk Nannes and Mitchell Starc, who would remain in the discussion for a second evening.
From that list, Afridi, Shakib, Umar, Saeed, Ajantha, Imran, Sohail, Badree, Nannes, Wahab, and Bravo, were all cut.
In the case of Bravo, the panel felt the all-rounder would be better suited as one of the Impact Players, a discussion that is to come down the line.
Badree, on the other hand, was seen as limited and not offering as much flexibility as would Rashid or Narine.
According to the panel, Taylor in particular, Badree is at his best when opening the bowling, while Narine and Rashid are useful throughout an innings.
The SportsMax Zone, in response, found no fault with the eventual six the panel came up with. The Zone and panel will discuss the merits and flaws of Malinga, Rashid, Narine, Steyn, Jasprit, and Starc before coming up with a final three.
While fans, call fanalysts, have not yet made up their mind on the three bowlers who would make up their Ultimate XI, there has been a trend that suggests their six for final discussion.
According to fans, Malinga, Narine, Jasprit, Rashid, Bravo, and Nannes would be the six they would have under consideration tomorrow.
Fanalysts can vote by clicking here or going to SportsMax.tv and just clicking on the Ultimate XI tab at the top of the screen.
SportsMax.tv has also built a list of profiles where Fanalysts can go to have a look at the careers of the players who have made the SportsMax Ultimate XI shortlist just in case you want to learn a little more about them before making your choice. To take a look at those players click here.
CPL teams unhappy with TKR ‘advantage’
Teams in this year’s Hero Caribbean Premier League have voiced annoyance with a decision that seems to have given a slight advantage to the Trinbago Knight Riders ahead of the competition’s start on August 18.
The grievance appears to have been caused because local players from the TKR did not join the bio-secure bubble at the Hylton Hotel, continuing to train.
The first teams allowed to train were announced on Tuesday with the St Lucia Zouks and the Knight Riders getting the go ahead. According to a release from the CPL, local players had gone through the mandatory testing process and would this week enter the bubble.
“Everyone should have been part of the bubble from the first day to “guarantee” that the health and safety of all stakeholders is not “compromised”, read a social media post from Zouks skipper Daren Sammy.
"How can everybody else be in a bubble no access to training or practice games while others on the outside in a COVID infected area be training and playing practice games. Then allowed to join the bubble without self-isolation," read another from the Zouks skipper.
According to reports, defending champions, Barbados Tridents have also not taken kindly to the difference being shown to the local TKR players and asked why it was that all players from the franchise were not asked to enter the bubble and undergo the mandatory weeklong quarantine everybody else did.
But according to Michael Hall, operations director of the CPL, it was necessary to take precautions to ensure local players entering the bubble were not a threat to the environment’s bio-security.
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