‘Gayle Force’ takes sporting world by storm

Even at the best of times, Chris Gayle is known to wear that famous deadpan expression of his. However, the inscrutable West Indies opening batsman could not help smiling and was “at a loss” to explain to how he managed to score the fastest century in any form of cricket in the Indian Premier League (IPL) last Tuesday.

Nicknamed “Mr Cool” or “Cramps” among his teammates, Gayle is married to Nacy Benoit and lives in Kingston, Jamaica. Like any other West Indian, he prefers a light life and is a big lover of music — while on tours, he is hooked on to his Playstation or loves watching any sport on TV. His business venture, Dutty Fridaze Promotions, which he has launched with his brother, is also involved in a number of charitable activities.

The 30-ball century which Gayle struck for his franchise, Royal Challengers Bangalore, shook the sporting world to such an extent that even the American media were forced to sit up and acknowledge. In a country where the game of cricket is still perceived as a somewhat remote and a poor cousin of baseball, leading newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post acknowledged Gayle’s innings as the most significant sporting feat of the day.

Just ponder over this paragraph in the LAT: “Gayle, dubbed ‘Gayle Force’ by the Indian media, batted 175 points at Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy Stadium without getting put out, the highest ever individual score in Twenty20, an abbreviated form of cricket that lasts hours, rather than days, and dispenses with the tea breaks.” Very much an American take on cricket, but good enough to illustrate the impact of his innings.

While the 33-year-old was always known for his big-hitting abilities, Gayle would certainly have to thank the emergence of IPL for taking it to a legendary status. The shortest form of the game has helped him express himself better than ever before, with Gayle emerging as the highest run-getter in IPL for two seasons, including last year when he plundered a whopping 733 runs!

More significantly, during his period of exile from international cricket for 18 months between 2010 and 2012 (thanks to the West Indies board’s strongheaded approach), the IPL and other T20 leagues around the world became a window for him to show the administrators as to what they were “missing”. However, to put things in perspective, Gayle’s influence or achievements in the game go beyond just the tag of being an undisputed king of Twenty20 cricket. Making his international debut at a time when Caribbean cricket had seen off its glory days and was leaning so heavily on Brian Lara’s shoulders, he had emerged as one of the pillars of their batting along with the likes of Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan.

Even midway last year, the chances of Gayle breaking his exile to come back to international cricket were rather remote and it looked that with not much left to achieve, he may prefer the life of a “free agent” playing only in the lucrative T20 leagues. However, on coming back, it was a different side of the man one encountered when he played a mentor’s role in steering the West Indies to the T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka last year — their first major title after eight years.

This is where he patented his famous “Gangnam Style” celebrations after taking a wicket — while the public address system would break into the viral Opa Gangnam Style from time to time to salute the gentle giant’s presence. It was a balmy October night when the Caribbeans escaped to victory against the fancied hosts in the final and one had to see Gayle’s full-on celebrations to comprehend the significance of the triumph for him.

“This is the happiest day of my life,” he said with a broad grin before disappearing in a cluster of maroon West Indian shirts once again — rolling on the ground, dancing and singing all the way. It was the biggest moment of retribution for him after years of being witness to a mediocre team plunging into further depths of despair all the time.

The casual stroll to the wicket and the laid-back attitude may often give the impression that the man does not really care, but statistics tell a different story. When the occasion demands, Gayle has often shown that his batting has more to it than the slam-bang stuff. A fine example was in 2009 when he batted for more than seven hours to make an unbeaten 165 to salvage a draw against Australia in Adelaide before smashing a hundred off 70 balls — the fifth fastest in Test history — in the very next match.

He is seventh in the list of all-time high rungetters in Tests for the West Indies and also one of only four batsmen to score two triple hundreds in Test cricket. The Caribbean greats ahead of him in the scorers’ list, especially men like Gary Sobers, Vivian Richards and Brian Lara were iconic figures who kept the spirit of the combined West Indies flag alive at a time when each island is keen to project its own identity.

What’s more, it’s football and basketball, which seem to be driving the Caribbean youth away from their once-favourite pastime of cricket. It is in this context that West Indies cricket needs a larger-than-life, messiah figure like Gayle to bide some more time in the middle!