The curious case of Chris Gayle grows stranger by the day. Here is a man who has two Test triple hundreds under his belt; his ability to scorch opposition bowlers with his big hitting has the best demoralised and he continues to take the West Indian domestic league, Regional Super 50, by storm.
Middlesex are yet another team that seeks to have the buccaneer in their midst.
Gayle is perhaps the most successful free agent in the cricketing realm.
Following the exit of Brian Lara, Gayle dons the mantle of ‘Entertainer’ with typical Calypso swagger.
However, he has no place in the current West Indian scheme of things.
His running feud with the West Indian Cricket Board is well-documented. The West Indian Players Association (WIPA) rallied to his defence but to no avail.
Gayle rubbed the high-and-mighty in the corridors of power the wrong way with his damning indictment of their high-handed ways. His displacement from the national side following disagreements with Dr. Ernest Hilaire of the WICB forced him to cast aside the kid gloves and slam the board’s idiosyncratic ways.
In a radio interview to KLAS Sports, Gayle said (then):
“I wanted to get back on track as quickly as possible. I wanted to play and represent West Indies. This was my ultimate goal, since I did not have a contract, but I was forced into this decision (playing for RCB) because teams were picked
“I was not informed about what was happening, and I did not know what the future would hold. The matches could be played, and other players do well, and I could still be sitting on the sidelines, so I had no other choice.
“I have served West Indies for many years, but I was disrespected a lot, and I have been playing under a lot of pressure. I can’t sleep properly. I need to get this off my chest.
“I want everybody to print what I said, I want to clear the air and I want them to ease up. WICB… back up offa (sic) my back.”
The WICB are in no mood to relent.
A retraction of his statements is a mandatory requirement for his reinstatement.
WICB Director, Clive Lloyd said:
“First of all it is disappointing that the matter has gone on for as long as it has.What we need now is closure and, to be fair, anyone of whom those comments were made would have a right to take umbrage.”
Withdrawing the comments would be the intelligent thing to do to get the issue resolved and have everyone move on. We need senior players to be in the setup to drive the progress forward and any team would love to entertain Gayle, but under the right circumstances.
What are the options open to Chris Gayle?
The first is that he continues his merry ways, plundering runs and purses in the IPL, the Champions League and the Big Bash Down Under.
Let’s make hay while the sun shines and everything else can take care of itself.
The second – less palatable – choice is to bite the bullet and retract his ‘offensive’ statements concerning the running of West Indian cricket and the shoddy treatment meted out to him – accept Clive Lloyd’s offer at face value and buckle down to serve West Indian cricket for the best part of the next five years. History, hopefully, will then be rewritten by a modern one-day great.
After all, doesn’t Virender Sehwag deserve competition worthy of his swift blade? Shouldn’t Indian fans have the opportunity to watch Chris Gayle parade his wares in the supreme form of the game? Should petty politics drown out the cries of fans all over the world?
The third less obvious option – not so much to the man in the centre of the storm – is the penning of an autobiography that lays his soul bare to whosoever cares to learn more about the travails of a millionaire swashbuckler.
Shane Watson, Shoaib Akhtar and Imran Khan are among the latest to release their life-stories. Gayle is well within his rights to follow suit.
Sure, there are commercial considerations at stake but then every cricketer is a brand, isn’t he? Gotta milk it for all its worth.
However, biographies signal that one believes that one’s best performances are past us – specifically in the case of sportsmen. This isn’t always the case, but Gayle should hold off from pursuing any such endeavour even as he attempts to set the record straight. Fans would rather have him setting fresh ones.
If I were Gayle (but then I’m not), I’d bite the bullet and opt for the second alternative – if as he claims, he is truly intent on turning out in West Indian colours.
Not because the current set of administrators are paragons of virtue; they could well be jokers (as Mohinder Amarnath once put it) but simply because the man calling for understanding and restraint is a person of stature and repute and whose word caries a great deal of weight not just in West Indian cricketing circles but across the globe.
Can Clive Lloyd assure Gayle that there will be no witch-hunts, no cold-shouldering, no schisms to disrupt players from giving their best on the field? West Indian cricket could well turn a corner – sooner rather than later.
Are Christopher Henry Gayle and Clive Lloyd up for their sternest test? Can a gentleman’s agreement suffice in what’s evidently no longer a ‘gentleman’s game’?
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Judging from the rain-shortened game in Chittagong, there is a fair bit to like about the current West Indies side's bowling. Edwards and Rampaul bowled as quick and aggressively as you'd hope. Sammy's medium pace got wickets, as its harder to play than it looks, and Bishoo especially bowled some pretty good legspin. Samuels was kinda OK for a batsman who can bowl the slow stuff a bit, but didnt impress me (that said, he got Tanim and Sakib, so he did something right). I was less impressed by their batting - here is a clip of Simmons getting out to Shahadat http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uYW6ra7Ri5w Theres no foot movement, and a prod to a decent ball short of a length outside the off stump, and Raquibal snaffles it at gully, and the West Indies opening partnership is cracked for 19 runs on the board, exposing their brittle middle order to Bangladesh's battery of slow left armers, and they drift aimlessly to 6-152. It wasnt until the late-order hitting of Darren Sammy that someone looked like they wanted to take control of the Test Match, and they ended up dismissed for 244. If not for the rain and bad drainage, the West Indies were looking at batting last, with a deficit of 106 runs of the first innings.
Linus Fernandes
Roar Rookie
It's great to see so many comments on this article. Thank you. It has been an informative debate. Yes, I'm aware of the doldrums the Windies find themselves in, and yes, it has become clear that if the decline continues, the Windies and other poorer cricketing nations, will find themselves merely feeding talent to IPL, BBL and other mercenary leagues. But the Boards benefit by getting a certain fraction of the players' salary. Is that enough? That's debatable. It seems to be similar case with Indian state associations complaining that with the IPL, they will merely serve as feeders for the IPL teams. Is there a way for the IPL to give back? Shouldn't they be setting up talent academies much like EPL teams? Can this be internationalized? How will that work?
Crayfish
Guest
Gayle at his best is a phenomenal batsman, but even with his two triple centuries his Test average is barely 40 (chronic underachiever), he's played his whole career not changing that they are a losing side, proven himself a tactically inept captain, carried himself in a manner that has seen his attitude constantly questioned and seemed aloof from accepting responsibility and/or criticism. I think after years of poor attitude and poor performance (with their senior players leading the charge), the West Indies have had to do something drastic. Chris Gayle is their best batsman, but for all the reasons above he's also far from indispensable. In fact, given those reasons, I think the current crop of talented youngsters are best off without him. After two generations of underachievers, the current WI side looks the most unified and committed it has in my whole lifetime of watching cricket. Under Otis Gibson and Darren Sammy, quite simply, they are improving. If Gayle were to apologise and make peace with the coach, go back to Jamaica and make a truckload of runs (while showing an improved attitude) I'd pick him in an instant. Until then, enjoy your money Chris, but for WI it's Simmons and Barath (both fine young talents too!)
Russ
Guest
Ian, it is a context thing though isn't it? If cricket was scheduled sensibly, with windows for T20 leagues, such that Gayle's choice was sitting at home or playing test cricket, and if the series against Bangladesh was a qualifier for a global event, instead of a game for the sake of having a game, then I'm sure Gayle would play. Sportsmen are primarily motivated by status (both in money and trophies). Cricket currently limits its paths to greater status to a select group of international players in three countries. Until that changes there will be many more players like Gayle.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Russ, Like I said, he just doesnt want to play Test Cricket for the West Indies. Especially as, even with Gayle replacing Braithwaite, on slow, turning pitches the West Indies are about as good as Bangladesh, and Im not sure I'd back them at short odds against New Zealand or Sri Lanka either. For those of you who havent been paying attention to that tour, at a rain-affected game in Chittagong one side declared twice, and it wasnt the West Indies, and one of the sides was dismissed for 61 in a one dayer, and that wasnt Bangladesh.
Russ
Guest
Ian probably misrepresents it slightly. Gayle wants to play for the West Indies provided a) he is paid at or near what he'll be paid for playing elsewhere and b) he plays in games that garner him the same amount of respect as a cricketer he'd gain elsewhere. The WICB can offer neither, though whether the WIPA appreciates that is unclear. It can offer tours to and from New Zealand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe noone watches that cost them money, shortened early-season tours to Australia and England, and a higher percentage of WI revenues that Australian cricketers receive. What it can't match are the payments available in the IPL or Big Bash, nor can it earn income from selling media rights to rich countries that don't want to tour them. Their revenue and expenditure is all publicly available by the way, and in far more detail than other boards provide. Makes for fascinating reading, and shows very very clearly just how dependent the smaller nations are on the FTP delivering India to their doorstep every few years.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Frankly, the WIPA wants money that just isnt there. WICB is broke simply because there are too few cricket fans with money in the West Indies. As it involves !effort!, Chris Gayle doesnt want to play Test Cricket for the West Indies. Similarly, Johnno doesnt want to watch Test Cricket, unless its involving England and Australia. And that means we cant make either of them do it without paying them for their time. We could probably pay Johnno $30 an hour to watch Australia play Pakistan, but as an Indian club side just gave him about six hundred large, it'd cost a lot more than that for Chris Gayle to play against Pakistan. But when the WICB have the bread, he'll pick up a bat, and thats just the way of the world.
Linus Fernandes
Roar Rookie
If Gayle doesn't want to play Test cricket or represent WI, why go through the rigmarole of having the WIPA espouse his cause? Just for kicks?
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Chris Gayle doesnt want to play Test Cricket, and he doesnt have to, and the WICB cant pay him enough to do so. The WICB are broke, for a variety of reasons including internal mismanagement ... but the big one is simply that the West Indies are poor. According to the CIA (*) world factbook, Jamaica has a per capita income of about $8300, while Australia as a per capita income of about $41 000. Therefore, the WICB plans on grossing about $5 a ticket when they run something like the Carribean 20-20. You need a lot of $5 tickets to afford $800 000. Regrettably, the WICB does not actually get sufficient revenue when it tours overseas, either- they got a tour fee of $1.5m when they toured Australia in 2009-10, which is about a fifth of the $8m they paid players in the same year. Note that the rich countries dont want to play the poor ones, and they especially dont want to play them away, where the home countries get the revenue. So at the end of the day Chris Gayle gets paid enough so he can holiday instead of going to Bangladesh for three weeks in October to play Test cricket. Ian Whitchurch http://wicbexpose.com/category/financial-erosion/ https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/jm.html http://www.windiescricket.com/sites/default/files/documents/WICB-Chairmans-report-for-year-ended-Sept-2010.pdf (*) How do you know the CIA werent involved in the Kennedy assasination ? He's dead, isnt he.