Wed, May 13, '09
commentary by IMRAN KHAN
With regard to the brouhaha resulting from recent comments made by West Indies captain Chris Gayle the International Cricket Council would do well to pay close attention to points made in this article written by Cricinfo’s Andrew McGlashan, comments made by Gayle himself at a pre-Test presser and statements from WIPA and CEO Dinanath Ramnarine.
[ SEE: Gayle drops bombshell on captaincy, Test cricket ]
“I have not been in this position. If I was in that situation, I would try to combine both forms of the game of cricket. And if I could not do that, then I would feel that Test cricket would remain the top priority. It would not be an easy decision to make. But I was never in a position like Chris Gayle where I had to choose between something like the IPL and international cricket. I suppose he will make the decision he feels is best for him.”
Sir Gary refuses to condemn Gayle for his choice, effectively saying “to each his own”. Sir Gary reckons that if he was not able to combine both forms of the game (is there anyone who doubts that he would have been an equal T20 superstar?) he would have opted to play Test cricket instead of T20. Gayle, apparently, sees things differently. And we must respect a man for stating his position clearly rather than floundering. Gayle has always been his own man, who is not shy in stating his position publicly. When he was in disagreement with the team curfew on the last Windies tour to England he made no secret of his position. We must respect the man for laying his cards on the table.
If he does not want to be West Indies captain he would not be the first. Many have resigned before. Many cannot handle the demands of leadership of an international cricket team. Mahela Jayawardene recently relinquished the captaincy of Sri Lanka. Who knows if it was not the first step of a medium term plan to quit Test cricket altogether?
If Gayle does not wish to prolong his Test career beyond any year then he, like Gilchrist and others, would have made a decision he thinks best. We may express regret but we cannot condemn a man for doing what he sees best for his life. We must respect such decisions as we have done, in the main, with Gilchrist and others.
Money is not an insignificant part of cricket and life but it is not the only aspect of either. Pedro Collins, in 2008, politely told the WICB ‘no thank you’ after they picked him for a solitary Test match. He opted instead to play for Surrey on a better financial contract. Tino Best made his way to the Indian Cricket League after he found himself out of the West Indies team and in need of money to pay his bills.
Gayle, having won US$1M from the Stanford Super Series and being bought for US$800,000 by the Kolkata Knight Riders may not be in the same position as Collins and Best. However a Test series takes a player away from home for significant periods each year and with Gayle now having achieved a level of financial security he may very well wish to spend more time with his family. He does have a mother, father and brother who have, at various times, been severely ill and as any caring son and brother might want, Gayle may just prefer to spend time with moms and pops rather than dueling it out on a cricket field with his mind not focused on the job at hand.
An exclusive T20 career would allow him more than enough time to bond with his family. Neither his mother or father are young people, the implications are obvious. And further this is a man who, since he was a teenager, has been spending the vast majority of his life away from his family, living through oppressive airport security and lonely hotel rooms.
Those of us who spend our lives commuting between home and work and relishing the odd vacation can see glamour painted all over the lifestyle of international cricketers but those who have experienced it will tell you that the novelty of it all wears off not so long after you’ve hit your tenth boundary or so.
And there is a final element which will see more and more players, as Gayle warns and McGlashan reiterates, choosing T20s over Tests. It is to do with injuries. Injuries, for fear of opposition exploitation, player insecurities and a host of other reasons with which I am all too familiar are the most under-reported aspect of international cricket.
For every one obvious injury cricket teams provide details on there are about five or six others being covered up with treatments, tablets, injections and whatever else physios and doctors deem necessary. A team will consider itself lucky beyond belief if there are five fully fit players in the playing eleven. Every other player has some niggle or another which potentially develops into something worse down the road.
And it does not require any level of intellectual genius to understand that five days of cricket is much more likely to worsen injuries than three hours of cricket. Not to mention that 90 overs per day for five days will potentially expose players to many more injuries than forty overs every few days. The decisions are obvious. We need not go further that the current Dwayne Bravo situation for ample evidence. Injured players will be able to make it through a 20 over romp unscathed as opposed to the rigours of 450 exhausting, never-ending overs spread over five torturous days whether in the oppressive and stifling heat of Eden Gardens or the numbing frigidity of Chester le Street.
Spectators have already been voting on the issue and we have seen the results on our television screens. Players are quietly making their decisions and it will come to the fore more and more. The revolution which T20 cricket has brought is not be limited to gate receipts but includes a liberalization of player options among a host of other factors. The future has arrived and many refuse to see what is before their very noses.
* Imran Khan is a Guyanese blogger. He previously served as media officer of the West Indies cricket team.
