The (real) lesson from Gayle's stance
commentary by PETER MONTGOMERYThere is a time to talk about selectors. It is usually simultaneous with team failures.
Once the selectors have failed like a delinquent unprepared student at examination time, be sure to expect public outcry and unceasing calls for their resignation.
Hardly a sentence of praise can be detected anywhere in the English media for the English selectors brilliance in selection of wicketkeeper Matt Prior. He has exploded into international cricket just when it was perfect for him as a player. His returns thus far in his yet brief career has been beyond what even he could have scripted. Every player dreams of 'tonning up' at Lord's and getting their name inscribed on the famous boards in the dressing room. To do it on your Test debut in front of a chock-a-block crowd? Hollywood scriptwriters may snub at such a scenario, dismissing it as being too perfect to be believable.
And for his achievements Prior deserves every bit of praise which comes in his direction but what about the men who studied and calculated and determined just when it was the perfect time to unleash him on the international stage? What does David Graveney and his lot get for their backroom work? If they are in luck some intuitive journalist may recognize it and pen a few kind words and if the whisky is running low at the editor's desk it may even slip into the newspapers.
More likely the selectors will enjoy their inspired selection in private, among themselves and strut about with the satisfaction of knowing that their job was done with excellence.
THE THREE WISE MEN
And so have Gordon Greenidge, Andy Roberts and Clyde Butts earned the right to strut about, chest emboldened for the next few weeks. Had Chris Gayle's captaincy, which they went as far as threatening their resignation en masse for, failed to return a series victory the regional media and opportunistic pundits would have been gnarling at the selectors throats.
"Look at who dem ah fight for, a man who lose de series," experts and fans alike would have been barking on radio and television sport shows across the islands. And those would have certainly been among the kinder comments from the agitators.
Alas, the selectors have triumphed. And what do they get for their intestinal fortitude? Silence! But it is not to be expected that the media and fans would be lining up to get the autographs of these three goodly men whose thankless jobs must carry a description which must include "damned if you do, damned if you don't". It is at times like these that Greenidge, Roberts and Butts must realize how thankless it can get.
Gayle, to the surprise of us all, has done a job no one could have reasonably predicted that he would have done. He is, after all, an inexperienced captain who, as Cricinfo labeled him, is as laid back as a flattened deck chair as a player. That was the Chris Gayle we all knew then. A few weeks ago at Lord's the real Chris Gayle emerged from that deck chair.
Not only has he led the team well but well enough to have secured a series victory coming from one game down and in a three match series to boot. Notwithstanding that the West Indies, bar the World Cup campaign, has been an improving One Day side, given the actual final series results, Gayle and his men's achievement is an astonishing feat.
It was achieved by a captain (who admirably continues to insist that he is a mere stand-in for his friend and compatriot Ramnaresh Sarwan) who the very West Indies Cricket Board not only bluntly rejected but against whom they plotted even after reluctantly reneging and accepting him into the post.
The WICB was forced into accepting captain Gayle by three men – the selectors. Rather than face its umpteenth public relations debacle with the mass resignation of its selection panel the WICB sensibly (and this should not be taken for granted given its general scarcity at Factory Road) allowed the Gayle captaincy appointment to go through.
Whether the selectors were merely being obdurate in the face of a power hungry few within the WICB or they genuinely believed that Gayle was the best man for the job is at the moment irrelevant. They must be credited for sticking to their guns and committing to the ultimate sacrifice of putting their jobs on the line. So strong was their belief, whatever fuelled it, that they were not going to allow themselves to be bullied by the WICB when it may have been an easier option to submit to the misguided will of their employers.
STANDING UP TO BULLIES
For God's sake it was about time that someone stood up to the corporate bullies, publicly proven liars and incompetents who manage the affairs of the WICB. And Gayle learnt a quick lesson from the selectors and followed suit.
On his first day on the job he lashed out but not just wildly as his predecessors may have done. He calculated his moves, cunningly managing to gain the WICB's approval for his comments then unleashed his verbal assault.
That the team then seemed to have magically bonded together caught the English, players and commentators alike, by surprise. This was a group of men who the English had just demolished in the Test series. How could they have so quickly risen out of the dumps and be firing like a champion unit? They recognized that Gayle's leadership was responsible but it speaks to the fluctuating levels of proficiency of the so called experts and analysts when they fail to recognize that the players have always been desperate for a leader who will prove beyond question that he is willing to stand up for his men in the face of whatever adversity there may be.
To think that Gayle verbally battered the WICB for its incompetence to please himself would be the essence of naivety. To the shrewd mind he clearly did so on behalf of his men who were fed up beyond tolerance of the WICB's continuous bunglings which sank so disgracefully low that it left them without players for a crucial warm up game.
TAKING ONE FOR THE TEAM
Therefore there can be little doubt that his comments were a reflection of the feelings of each team member to a man yet as any worthy leader would do, Gayle bit the bullet, took responsibility for the comments and bravely fought off the amateur challenge of the WICB. The easy option would have been for him, like others before, to have submitted to the autocratic and misguided president and apologise as the president boneheadedly wished. Not unlike the selectors Gayle recognized he followed procedure, was in the right and adamantly refused and ultimately stood up for his men and their views.
He knew that his comments were not merely his but reflected the team's position and had he apologized he would have been letting his boys down, cowering at a time when they needed to resist the oppressors – sadly in the form of their own board. And he perhaps was duty bound to his men to resist especially since he had sought and received all necessary clearances from the WICB in the person of the manager Michael Findlay (who is the personnel the WICB president should really be hauling over the coals if the president had any qualms about Gayle's comments).
And so the captain's resistance paid its dividends, not immediately but where it mattered most to him and to the team – on the field of play where the boys were willing to commit to a bigger effort for their skipper who they were confident would stand up and fight for them no matter the battlefield. Gayle proved to them that he will fight for them in the boardroom and they owed him one. And so they gunned for him on the field and the unfortunate English were left to rue their poor fortune while the selectors earned the right to gloat over their choice and the WICB, from the president onwards, once again are left in shame.
NOT ANOTHER FALSE DAWN
Let this not be another false dawn though. We have often allowed ourselves to be deluded and emotionally entrapped by the odd victory here or there, making bold declarations of it being the point of turnaround. Sobriety is needed in recognizing that this is but one small step forward.
There needs to be comprehensive changes both at the administrative and board levels. Obsessive micro-management by presidents and their foot soldiers needs to be eradicated. So too is glaring and rank incompetence by administrators. If those were to be repeated another captain will be forced to take the path Gayle had no option but to take for the sake of his men. The undeniable result will be that we will be running in another never-ending circle of mishaps and pitfalls.
And in all of this is a lesson, pertinent and strong, clear and unmistakable for one man, Ramnaresh Sarwan, who Gayle, in his uniquely Jamaica vernacular, insisted after the series win is the 'original leader'. Let us hope he learns it as well and as quickly as Gayle learnt his lesson from the selectors.