Chris Gayle: I am the King of All Formats

Chris Gayle: I am the King of All Formats: Whenever someone churns out the name of Christopher Henry Gayle, we get a picture of a big burly 6 feet 2 inches West Indian man intimidating the bowlers with his devastating and demolishing array of stroke play. This Jamaican bloke is the most sought after player in the world of T-20 franchise cricket.

In the recent few days, Gayle had mesmerizing the English fans with his breath taking batting displays in NatWest T-20 blast. He had a remarkable stint with Somerset in the NatWest T20 blast, where he scored 328 runs including a 150, in only 3 innings with 29 maximums to his credit.

In a candid conversation with Espncricinfo, Gayle opened up about various facets and sides of his cricket career. From his stern desire to represent West Indies to his love for test cricket. From his stop and start technique in T-20 cricket to his favorite league of the world, he spoke in length about everything.

Although, he has a history of strained relationships with the West Indian Cricket Board (WICB) along with some issues with his back Gayle still has a burning desire to play international cricket.

“I’d love to play a few more international games to be honest with you. But we’ll have to wait and see. It’s tough; the travelling is very hectic, sometimes you have to know when you’ve reached the limit in life, sometimes you have to draw the line

He further added: “I will still push to play international cricket, when I go back home I will have a discussion with the coach and maybe with the board, so that we can work out Chris Gayle’s future, to see if they are still interested. I am still interested so I’ll look forward to that and see how best it can work out.”

Chris Gayle has been one of the best West Indian batsman for a decade or so and his stats are exemplary in every format of the game. However, in the recent few years he has hogged the limelight for his T20 exploits all over the world, more than anything else. In T-20 cricket, he has an astounding tally of runs in excess of 7,000 with 15 centuries and more than 550 sixes against his name.

But yet, the 35 year-old insists:”People all say Chris is the king of T20, Chris is the and that of T20, I am the king of Test cricket too. “I scored two triple centuries. And 21 ODI centuries. So I’m the king of something. The king of all formats.

In 269 ODI matches he has scored 9221 runs with 22 hundreds at a strike rate of 85.11. In Test cricket, he has 7214 runs at an average of 42.18 in 103 matches with 15 hundreds. And in T20 Internationals, he has 1406 runs from 45 matches with a century at a strike rate of 142.59

The English batsmen Kevin Pietersen was shown the exit door by the English Director: “Andrew Strauss even after compiling a career best knock 355 in county cricket. Gayle, who is a friend and a fierce competitor of KP, had a special message for him.

He said: “KP, England don’t want you? Okay, come to the CPL. We’ll look after you there, if your own don’t want you, we’ll take you, we’ll accept you with both hands. You play for St Lucia Zouks, entertain the fans there, and it’ll be a cracker.”

The Caribbean Premier League is slated to start on 20th June. Gayle seemed to be very excited about the mouth watering aspects of the league which is like a party for him.

He said: “I’m looking forward to the CPL, that’s the party tournament. You can have a drink before and after the game – but, kids, don’t try this at home”

“The overseas guys come to the Caribbean, they go to the beach, have fun, chill, have a bit of rum, and then on the field we play hard cricket because we all want to win the tournament. It’s only going to get bigger and better, the buzz is going off, it’s the third year, looking forward to getting back home and getting into it.”

There is a saying in cricket that every cricketer aspires to represent his country in the whites which is a moment of sheer proud and glory. Even the mighty Gayle is no exception. He said: “A Test match is fantastic. It’s a test of character but the entertainment part of cricket is phenomenal. T20 has actually brought new cricket fans into the game, so we have to continue with this as well so that people who didn’t watch can eventually get to watch Test cricket.

Gayle is one of the few players in the world to have featured T20 franchise cricket in as many as 7 different countries. Reflecting on the mammoth experience, he added: “It’s good to travel the world and share different dressing rooms with different players over the world. You learn more about your culture and you make new friends, you gain more fans around the world as well. It’s been brilliant for me, it’s fantastic, and I’ve got a century for, if not all, then most of these teams. It’s great to achieve such things, but I never know which tournament is coming up next.”

When asked about the best T20 league in the world and the difference among such tournaments, the West Indian southpaw said: “There’s no doubt there’s a big gap between other leagues compared to IPL. IPL is definitely No. 1, but the Caribbean Premier League is fantastic too and [Australia’s] Big Bash is up there as well. Those three leagues are the top leagues.”

Though Gayle is an outright aggressive player who likes to go after the bowler’s right from the ball one in every formats of the game. But, we have also witnessed that sometimes he takes his time at the crease before going berserk and demolishing the bowlers. In one of the matches in NatWest T-20 blast, he adopted a similar game plan. He decoded about his game plan in that game as well as in some other games with similar style. The dashing West Indian told that:

“I was trying to get a rhythm, but it just didn’t happen so at the same time I said I’m not going to panic, I know that if I bat a bit deeper I should be able to play catch-up and get it back in the bag, and that’s what happened. It was my first game, I hadn’t had a net session, I struggled to get a feel for the conditions so it was just experience.”

“It’s a mind thing. You have to prepare yourself mentally for these sort of situations. I knew it was going to be tough here, I knew it was going to be cold as well, so that’s always a trouble from a West Indian point of view. But I stuck to the task and got across the line.”