Chris Gayle, the cricketing legend
Recently Chris Gayle was sacked from his role as captain of the West Indies cricket team. It was a shock to most cricket fans because Gayle is a very well respected and talented cricketer. Over the years, he has become a constant at the helm of the West Indian team and has powered them to some great victories. He is known for his powerful hitting and his useful bowling as well. But it seems the current bad patch that his team is going through at the moment has taken its toll on him and the management is making way for someone else to lead the team and try to bring it back to its glory days. This does not by any means mean the end of Gayle who is still a very strong force to be reckoned with in international and domestic cricket.
Chris Gayle was born in 1979 and started playing cricket in his home country of Jamaica at http://www.senore.com/Cricket/A-Young-c41367 age. He was a prominent member of the West Indies youth team and made his debut in first class cricket at the age of 19 playing for Jamaica. He impressed scouts so much that he was chosen to play for the national side almost a year after he started playing first class cricket. He was initially called in to play the ODI version of the game but he was also selected 6 months later for the Test side. Despite of his skills, Gayle had a slow start to his international career and it took him a long time to get going. But once he did get going he was seemingly unstoppable.
Chris is an explosive batsman and he is regarded for his powerful hitting abilities at the crease. In 2002, he really got his career off to a flying start by scoring three centuries against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 in 2005.
Besides batting the tall Jamaican is also proficient with the ball and has taken 71 wickets in Tests and 153 wickets in One Days over the years. Besides the two regular forms of the game, Gayle is also devastating when he plays in T20 cricket. He currently holds the record for highest score in a Twenty 20 game when he blasted 117 runs against South Africa in 2007.
Gayle is known for being relatively controversy free but like a lot of cricketers, he has had some problems over the years. In 2005, he and several other players on the West Indian team had a problem with the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 Cricket Board. A lot of the players as well as the Board were sponsored by Cable and Wireless but when the Board changed sponsors to competitor Digicell, it wanted the players to do so as well. A lot of them including Gayle refused and he was subsequently dropped from the squad for a few matches. He eventually dropped his sponsor and was allowed back into the team. In 2009, he criticised the West Indian Board and said he wanted to resign from the captaincy because of the immense pressure involved. He eventually did not resign and was given a warning and also reprimanded.
Recently the great cricketer has been replaced as captain of the team by Darren Sammy. Gayle was captain of the side since 2007, but it seems that because of the team’s poor form of late it was time to give someone else a shot at the top spot and see what they could do for the team. Even though Gayle was a great captain, it may have been time to replace him with someone fresh. Maybe Sammy can lift the spirits of the team better than Gayle could. Whatever happens, Gayle will continue to be a large part of the West Indies team and continue to make lots of run and win matches for them for many years to come.
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