In destruction we trust.
Forget about them white-balls vanishing…the crowd should see sixes; for we got to send them out in the woods… you know what…we must.
The aforementioned was an extract from the diary of Chris Gayle, dated 27 February 2019 in an entry made from Grenada.
Okay, wake up.
The guy is a batsman unless you are referring that Chris Gayle also happens to be penning diary entries for a living.
But the bloke is a chiller. He ain’t got no time for penning journals. He’d much rather muscle a few blows out of Kingston Jamaica, the MCG, Sher-e-Bangla or wherever the heck it is that he’s batting.
Right, Chris?
In fact, you get a sense that probably the last thing Chris Gayle ever really read in the most recent conversation could’ve been a babe’s (read fans’) Insta caption.
Blame no one, just the man’s love for living an uncomplicated life. It’s as if, Gayle’s the Iced tea of world cricket
But truth be told, three mysteries in the modern world may never be solved, given how grave they really are.
- The topic of the Bermuda Triangle
- The date of Donald Trump’s exit from the White House.
- What makes Christopher Henry Gayle tick at 39?
At times, it appears as if Snoop Dogg could play the West Indian should the rapper ever wish to burn some sh*t on the 70-mm screen.
Perhaps, it even makes sense.
Quite like Snoop, who went from being a Dogg to Lion, the Jamaican has also oscillated between being the Universe’ Boss into fashioning himself as a ‘lion.’
And one knows what becomes of the hunted when there’s a lion out on the prowl- right?
Maybe the likes of Chris Woakes and Mark Wood, whom he blasted for several half-a-dozen’ with the same effort one requires to pluck an apple from a tree, can offer insights?
Shouldn’t the freewheeling pot-smoking rap-god essay a batsman on whose career many have already been written with much love and verve?
But you might say, you’d much rather have Gayle play himself on the big-screen should Hollywood ever consider doing to Cricket what Ron Howard’s Rush did to movie buffs and sport-lovers.
Who would not want Chris Gayle to be the Guy Fawkes of this not such an Anonymous recreation, right?
But, for the above to be true, we might have to play the patient game of a kind that Dravid epitomized; something which knowing Gayle doesn’t quite seem likely.
But you know what, it’s not important whether there’ll be a full-scale production on Chris Gayle, the father of cute lil ‘Blush’, two Test triples, 25 ODI tons, and 305 ODI sixes- and counting.
What’s important is that at a time where he’s approaching 40, in a fashion completely contrary to Steve Carrell in the 40-year-old-virgin, Chris Gayle’s outraged the modesty of bowlers who wished nothing else to savor apart from sporting a frugal bowling economy.
A few hours back, Chris Gayle did that to Ben Stokes and Mark Wood, and even Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali. The venue was Grenada. The weather was good. The bowling, well, not so good but the West Indians better not complain as their bowling attack- if it could be called that- hardly seemed attacking as runs leaked akin to water falling from a running tap.
And just when it seemed that at 162, an effort that took only some 97 balls, Gayle would have gone on to grind England completely into dust, part of his normal operating procedure, which becomes recurring when he gets going, the Jamaican found he found a way to make Ben Stokes happy.
‘Stoksie’, a sufferer of Gayle’s close friend Samuels’ salute (circa 2015)- who can forget the wordless banter- had conceded 77 runs from 8 overs before clinching Gayle and hence, the game-turning wicket.
And that’s just what Chris Gayle is about.
When on a song, he lets you become part of his orchestra.
It’s a fine rendering by the way, which is felt as if thunderbolt and lightning appeared in a live wire of a concert where music is generated through muscular pulls over deep mid-wicket, mighty hoists, flick-ish lifts over extra cover, and whatnot.
Gayle, a soldier dedicated to seeking liberation through a brute exhibition of run scoring (of which he’s a pure artist) has been at the forefront of giving bowlers a hard time ever since he began.
Gayle was once this boy who considered Brian Lara the best he’d watched in his adolescent years. Who would’ve known that he’d come close twice at going past the statistical mountain called 400 not out?
Who would’ve expected perhaps not the best user of technique, someone whose struggles against spin are as evident as the ease with which he sends fielders on ‘go, get the ball from the crowd spree’, to strike what became T20s first-ever hundred, that too at the tournament’s mightiest template during the 2007 World Cup versus an attack that had Kallis, Ntini, Pollock?
In an era that searches for reverence, Gayle’s reference points have frequently been mighty sixes, devotion to batting, chilling out, partying, and pretty much giving a darn about anything else in his life.
He became during IPL’s years of fever pitch, Royal Challengers Bangalore and later, KXIP’s opponents’ a great tyrant who brutalized bowlers with the bat in his hand, not a sedate tool, it could be said without much further ado.
He traveled to Pakistan, Bangladesh for T20 leagues, even danced with Afghanistan who vanquished his team in a T20 world cup duel, and in so doing, spread much love for his West Indies, who were, since the onset of Lara’s exit in 2007, anyways on their downhill, earning chagrin, constant criticism from world cricket.
With the World Cup staring at some obvious choices cited as possible winners and some that aren’t, there’s a high possibility of Gayle actually going back on his words, but only for the kind of form, he’s in at the moment.
A few hours back, when the dance-loving Jamaican, broke England’s back, and very nearly their soul, in his bid to take his Windies closer to what had seemed at one point, a highly ungettable (read unsavoury as well) 419, Gayle had announced, he may rethink about his decision to retire post the 2019 World Cup.
Should that not happen- which would mean not the best possible news for bowlers out there- it would only point in one direction.
That while there’s ‘So much trouble in the world’ to borrow a phrase from Gayle’s compatriot Bob Marley’s lyrics, there’ll most certainly be more for anyone and everyone- be it a Boult, Sodhi, Jadeja, Shami, Wood, Rashid, Cummins, Hazlewood, Lyon, Yasir, Aamir, Abbas or Shamsi.
And that, may not exactly be a savory situation to cope with particularly since Gayle, the man responsible for inspiring an actual meme-like adulation in the world- courtesy his 215 against Zimbabwe in 2015- would be keen to have a go at bowlers again.
It’s not the best threat to be facing. Everyone from the redoubtable Mark Wood to the irrepressible Rashid and Ali knows.
But it’s also incredible then that one of Cricket’s finest hours comes to greet fans with wide-eyed smiles in the form of the white-ball bowlers’ predicament.
But knowing how much he’s admired, perhaps just as much by his opponents as he is by his own, it doesn’t seem that the world minds loving Chris Gayle, one bit- isn’t it?
