In two decades playing against England, the opening batsman has rarely faced a bowler as quick as Jofra ArcherAccording to the official statistics Chris Gayle is 188cm tall. These days, when he bends down to touch his toes he seems to feel every last one of them. Gayle made a dip in their direction right before he stepped over the boundary rope at the Hampshire Bowl on Friday, the idle stretch of a man only lately out of bed and getting ready for the day ahead. It was his last half-hearted gesture towards a warm-up before beginning this, his 521st international innings for West Indies, and his last against England unless the two teams play again in the knockout rounds...
In two decades playing against England, the opening batsman has rarely faced a bowler as quick as Jofra ArcherAccording to the official statistics Chris Gayle is 188cm tall. These days, when he bends down to touch his toes he seems to feel every last one of them. Gayle made a dip in their direction right before he stepped over the boundary rope at the Hampshire Bowl on Friday, the idle stretch of a man only lately out of bed and getting ready for the day ahead. It was his last half-hearted gesture towards a warm-up before beginning this, his 521st international innings for West Indies, and his last against England unless the two teams play again in the knockout rounds...
They may have differing styles but the veteran West Indies opener and India wicketkeeper are proving their class and their longevity in recent inningsEven after four hundred-and-some years cricket still has its mysteries, like whether the weather really causes swing, exactly what happened to the ball Garry Sobers hit for that sixth six, and quite why so many of the best players seem to end up advertising hair transplants. You can make a great team of these, say, off the top of my head (and theirs), Graham Gooch and Virender Sehwag, Michael Vaughan, Ricky Ponting, Martin Crowe, Jacques Kallis, Sourav Ganguly, Greg Matthews, Shane Warne, Darren Gough, and Doug ‘the rug’ Bollinger. It’s a symbiotic relationship. The cricketers get one...
For the past 12 years, Gayle has been running a roving revue from town to town and ground to ground. And along the way he’s racked up remarkable numbersLong lost now, deep in the scrapheap of discarded ideas, the International 20:20 was supposed to be a champions’ league between the world’s six best club teams. It was held at Grace Road at the very tail end of the 2005 season. Somerset and Leicestershire represented England. Australia, New Zealand and West Indies weren’t even running domestic T20 competitions yet, so the only overseas teams who turned up were the Chilaw Marians, the Faisalabad Wolves and the Nashua Titans. That left one slot free, so a ragtag PCA Masters XI was roped...