Chris Gayle

Chris Gayle to play Twenty20 for someone

In a not-entirely-surprising move, Chris Gayle has signed to play for Somerset in next season’s Twenty20 Cup.

Gayle’s ‘people’ released a statement quoting him as saying:

“I’m delighted to be heading to [insert name of cricket team]. Hopefully I can make a key contribution to their T20 campaign this year.”

Somerset’s director of cricket, Brian Rose, said that Gayle would get into any world T20 XI.

Low-level cricket media nonentity, King Cricket, said that Gayle would only play for a world XI if he was happy with the pay. Otherwise he’d be playing for a Groningen XI that weekend in the Netherlands Super Twenty20 Cup of Superness, because they’d put together a very competitive financial package.

Out with the old Windies players

The West Indies have dropped Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul for the first two of five one-day internationals against Pakistan.

Whether this is actually a strong move, we don’t yet know. It depends whether any of them return. The Windies’ coach, Ottis Gibson, has had fairly transparent opinions about these players though. He thinks they don’t really give a shit, which may well be true.

Chanderpaul is pretty old now, so dropping him from the one-day side does make sense. Ramnaresh Sarwan was dropped for a while as an up-the-arse kick, but the anus pain only seemed to spur him to continued mediocrity.

Gayle’s a bit different. He is far and away the most intimidating West Indian batsman and while he certainly appears like he doesn’t give a shit, we’re reluctant to judge, because we know better than anyone that ‘appearing to not give a shit’ and ‘not giving a shit’ are entirely different things.

There’s some interesting stuff about Gayle at WICB Exposé, a site which is fairly self-explanatory if you look at the various categories it boasts: Abuse of Power, Nepotism, Mismanagement, Hypocrisy, Financial Erosion, Dirty Tricks and good, plain old-fashioned Corruption.

As a hilarious footnote to this, we found WICB Exposé by following a link from Lalit Modi’s Twitter account.

Chris Gayle Graham Gooches it

Chris Gayle didn’t make it to 400. People might think that just because a batsman’s hit 333, he’s more than likely to get another 67, but it doesn’t work like that. Batsmen aren’t robots. They get knackered.

Batting isn’t like triathlonnery, but it is tiring and it does go on a bit. We’ve been to Sri Lanka. One day out in the sun floors you, even if you’re inactive. Two days of any kind of activity must be bloody murder, so well played Chris Gayle.

Even Graham Gooch couldn’t get more than 333 and he did it in England with superior facial furniture to sustain him. Four years ago, we wrote a post about Graham Gooch’s 333 against India. It seems very dated now.

A Test double hundred must be quite good fun for Chris Gayle

Still a man defined by his ‘wouldn’t be so sad if Test cricket died’ pronouncement, Chris Gayle can’t help but have enjoyed hitting a double hundred against Sri Lanka in the first Test at Galle.

All those gaps in the field, plenty of overs in which to keep swishing – what’s not to love? Who wants to leave a restaurant after just having a starter? If you left, you’d only find yourself out in the cold, face pressed up against the glass, coveting others’ main courses.

What would you do then? Would you go round the back and pick stuff out of the bins? Is that what you’d do? Eh? Eh? Would you? Would you pick stuff out of the bins? You disgust us.

Chris Gayle likes Test cricket a little bit.

Chris Gayle knows where England go wrong

Chris Gayle knows why England rarely perform well at these tournaments:

“I’m sure they come out here with blood in their eyes.”

That can’t help. Even if it doesn’t affect their vision too much, it’s got to be a bit unsettling.

Chris Gayle likes Test cricket a little bit

How would you describe Chris Gayle’s normal on field expression?
Like someone’s wiped shit on his sleeve but he’s too tired to do anything about it.

How did Chris Gayle look when he got his hundred?
He dropped to his knees and started beaming. It seems he does like Test cricket a bit.

Why?
Why wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t get a whole 70 balls to hit a hundred in Twenty20.

How would you treat Test cricket if you were Chris Gayle?
We’d buy it drinks or maybe just nail it to the floor so it couldn’t get away.

How big was that six?
It was very big.

Chris Gayle is a Twenty20 cricketer who can’t play Test innings

That’s Chris Gayle’s reputation. We’ve been reading it all week as people say they didn’t know Gayle had it in him to bat the way he did against Australia in hitting 165 not out off 285 balls.

Really? You didn’t know that? Are you sure you weren’t just making a lazy stereotype of the man from his ‘Test cricket is dying’ pronouncements and the fact that he’s awesome at Twenty20?

His strike rate (runs scored per hundred balls) in that Adelaide innings was 57.89. Let’s compare that to his last three Test hundreds.

• 60 in his 102 v England at Port of Spain
• 53.88 in his 104 v England at Kingston
• 49.74 in his 197 v New Zealand at Napier

Cats are surprised by someone yawning within 20 feet of them. Sheep are surprised by the sun coming up each morning. Cricket followers shouldn’t be surprised that good batsmen aren’t one-dimensional caricatures.

Chris Gayle is awesome at Twenty20

Amid all the furore when Chris Gayle said he wouldn’t be all that sad if Test cricket died, one key fact slipped into the background: Chris Gayle is phenomenally good at this form of the game. Why wouldn’t he prefer it?

Gayle is an exceptional Twenty20 batsman. Arguably the best of the lot. If you’re the best at something, generally speaking, you’re going to like it.

It was only last night that England were humiliated by the Netherlands. Today, all that was forgotten in the warm euphoria of watching Chris Gayle hit Brett Lee a long, long way out of The Oval; so far you needed to pan out three times on Google Maps to have half a chance of seeing where the ball landed.

Gayle hit three towering sixes off one Lee over and the very best part is what he did immediately after each one: absolutely sod all. He just stood there blank-faced as if he’d just let one through to the keeper. Business as usual.

Chris Gayle ‘celebrates’ a fifty

When Chris Gayle reached his fifty today, he punched the air with both hands and then shook his head. Maybe he doesn’t think this Test feels like much of an occasion.

We don’t know exactly, but to us it seemed like a cricketer who didn’t think much of his own achievement, which is a bit sad as it was a vicious, counter-punching innings that deserved a bigger stage. That seems to be Gayle’s point.

Whatever the reason, we don’t want cricketers to treat any Test as a duff match they can’t be arsed with. Whatever your opinion of Gayle’s pre-match comments about how it wouldn’t be so sad if Test cricket died, he should still be playing in front of a full house. Test fifties, hundreds and wickets should get a reception that fits the achievement.

Chris Gayle hits a six we wouldn’t believe if we hadn’t just seen it

Chris Gayle developed a taste for clearing the ropes in his 43 ball 80, but one six in particular was more ludicrous than the other seven.

England were so dead, rigor mortis had set in and it’s easier to play freely in that situation, but this shot was stupendous. James Anderson bowled a bouncer and Gayle backed away. While he was still moving – retreating AWAY from the ball – he attempted what could only be described as an upwards flail.

Normally you’d miss. On a good day, you’d get a thin edge to the keeper. On a VERY good day, you’d succeed in lifting it to deep backward point.

Chris Gayle managed to punish the ball 90m into the crowd.