Chris Gayle as a match winner and not a basher - Opinion
West Indies opener Chris Gayle has always fascinated cricket lovers around the globe. His approach in any form of cricket has been characterized by brutal hitting. For Gayle, it has always been a matter of playing with undue freedom and exhibiting a fine
display of power hitting that many who witnessed, became overwhelmed with.
Yet strangely, Chris Gayle has always been labeled as a brash power hitter or a batsman who can decimate the bowling figures of some of the finest bowlers on one day and then play less than ordinarily on another. The maturity of a man of that stature is
almost always sidelined or ignored, which is equally commendable. Unlike the brute, brash and imprudent batting of players such as Shahid Afridi of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747, Chris Gayle has always shown his ability to build an innings and
atone himself according to the match situation.
A quick fire forty runs which are immaterial to the team’s cause in the end never really came from Gayle’s bat. There was a time in the early 2000’s when it was all about getting Gayle out early or bearing the brunt of his massive score. This trend is similar
for other great players such as http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Matthew-Lawrence-Hayden-c75233, where getting them out early would mean that the opposition would have a chance.
Chris Gayle is also one of the few players in Test history to have two triple hundreds to his name. His 319 against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 in 2005, was an innings of pure class, where characteristic back foot punches were supplemented with silken cover drives. Yet
the remarkable aspect was the pugnacity of Gayle’s approach in that innings which was complemented with a shrewd sense of the situation at hand. The West Indies needed a good start in that game and Gayle responded beautifully. His match winning knock in the
T20 format against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/ICC-World-Cup-2011-c100625 World T20 was another example of Gayle’s ability to take the match situation into hand and score accordingly.
The trouble with assessing Gayle’s batting comes with his natural inclination towards extravagant stroke play. Normally, players falling under that forte are considered to be attractive batsmen who are not necessarily match winners. Adam Gilchrist for the
most part of his career was considered to be a batsman who would guarantee a flying start which laid the platform for match winners such as Ponting and Symonds to take the game to a new level. Yet stereotypical images of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Adam-Gilchrist-c918 depositing cricket balls
out of the park, point out at a bleak picture of his numerous match winning contributions for http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746. Similarly, Chris Gayle’s contributions have often been sidelined in light of Brian Lara’s numerous match winning knocks for his side.
In contemporary times, where the West Indies cricket team has lost its ability to win on a consistent basis, Gayle is the go-to man to avert a crisis situation. His place at the top of the order is indispensable, and despite mutterings of his unpredictable
batting, there is no disputing the fact that without him, the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482, who had to be deployed down the order by Pakistan due to his lack of consistency, Chris Gayle still stands pretty as one of the best
openers that his side has ever had. With an average of nearly 40 in ODI cricket at a strike of 84, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/CH-Gayle-c1221 is more than just a one day basher.
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