Gayle drops bombshell on captaincy, Test cricket
Tue, May 12, '09
Chris Gayle is about to quit the captaincy of the West Indies team and won't be sad if Test cricket disappeared and was replaced by the Twenty20 format.That's the takeaway from an eyebrow-raising interview between the West Indies captain and the Guardian newspaper in England. Some highlights:
"I wouldn't be so sad," says Gayle when asked how he would feel if Test cricket were to die out. He prefers Twenty20 over the traditional game. About the captaincy he is similarly blase. "To be honest with you, there's a possibility I might give it up – I will be giving it up, shortly."
These statements do not come tumbling out; instead they are revealed over the course of an hour that begins with a moody face and the unusual sight of a huge man sipping hot chocolate. "Because it's sweet," he says, "and I'm sweet." He flashes a smile, his first of the morning. For the self-confessed "moody" captain, the hot sugary drink works wonders and Gayle's face emerges from the gloom.
On arriving late in England and his future as West Indies captain:
And what a gloomy week it has been. Since arriving only two days before the first Test to a storm of criticism – he was playing in the Indian Premier League, an event not well received – his West Indies side went on to lose the first Test at Lord's by 10 wickets inside three days. "Yeah it's definitely been a rough week," he says, "From when I landed in England it's been rough, and when we lost the game it's been even tougher. We were depressed."
As captain, the 29-year old Jamaican was the inevitable focal point for the blame, a fact that he notes bitterly. There begins a recurring theme of discontent with the role. "It wouldn't have been a big deal," he says, if he hadn't been captain. "That's how life is. All eyes on you, and all things point to you. Once things don't go well, fingers going to point."
In fact it could be argued that the finger pointing should be at the West Indies Cricket Board whose hastily arranged England tour clashed with pre-existing IPL arrangements. When the fall-out hit, Gayle was an easy scapegoat. "Yeah, they [the media] make it look like this [Test] was always here, like I want to choose IPL over this. That's why I said everybody knew this was always going to be the situation, so I don't see why people make it a big fuss and a big deal."
More on the captaincy:
Brooding on the role of the captain Gayle's sullen expression returns, until, suddenly he has an idea. "You want to play?" he says. "I don't mind having a journalist for my captain. I know she wouldn't write anything bad because she captain." The thought of ridding himself of the burden gives him great delight.
He is not the only one. Shivnarine Chanderpaul also hated the captaincy. "I'm pretty much similar to Shiv when it come to everything like talking to persons and stuff," says Gayle. "It is a lot of pressure. You're always in the media … At the time when I was asked [in 2007] I didn't want to be the captain."
Gayle says he was persuaded into the job on a temporary basis, standing in for the injured Ramnaresh Sarwan. "That's when it all started. We won the series and then I said to them, whenever Sarwan is fully fit, I am ready to step down. Maybe they saw something different, something totally different," he muses, "and they asked me to be captain.
"I thought hard about it. I didn't want to be captain, I wanted to have more free time. I didn't want that added pressure at that particular time, but they actually insist, insist, insist, so I said OK. So I thought, just get on with it."
..."I'm happy because it's done a lot for me as a person. It made me more outspoken, getting to interact with people, to be able to speak to a group – the majority of the time you have to give some sort of speech. You start off slowly, getting better and better, getting that confidence in yourself. It brought that out of me which I had inside but, you know, didn't want to express it – but as a captain you have to."
