PORT-OF-SPAIN: Twenty20 fans the world over found it appalling that the format's first international game post the recently-concluded Indian Premier League (IPL) did not feature its most valuable player - Chris Gayle.
In Trinidad, in fact, even 'appalling' was not quite the word to describe Gayle's absence when fans started queuing up at the Queen's Park Oval on Saturday morning.
"Politics, bloody politics," snarled burly men standing outside the Oval, sipping their favourite Carib beer, trying hard to figure how long they would be enjoying their drink once the game began.
No Chris Gayle? An astonishing 608 runs from 12 innings, two hundreds, three fifties, 56 boundaries and a mind boggling 44 sixes makes the man one of T20's biggest entertainers ever and at $250 (Trinidadian) for a decent ticket at the Oval, the one thing fans thought they deserved was getting to watch Gayle bat.
They weren't at all pleased to know that not only would Gayle not be playing this game, but he wouldn't be playing the first two One-dayers in the series too.
Further, his participation in the rest of the series against India will depend on how well his meeting with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) goes off in the coming week. Any effort to make these fans understand that the ongoing issue between Gayle and WICB isn't so much about politics as much as about egos is in vain. They just can't see logic in good cricketers having to go on their knees before the administration.
The WICB has made it very clear that Gayle will not be considered for selection before he meets the administrators, the team management and selection committee.
"The selection committee views this meeting necessary as a result of Gayle's comments in a widely publicized radio interview in Jamaica," says the board.
Gayle had minced no words in his interview back in April, saying he was hurt and angered by the board's decision to drop him initially ahead of the series against Pakistan.
After making those comments, he left the West Indies to play in the IPL and continued to ignore the board's point of view that he shouldn't have done so.
The board now wants a meeting with him ahead of the next selection meeting to be held after the first two one-dayers and only if he can 'make them understand' will his position in the team be clear.
"He was anyways a non-starter for this T20 match," says a WICB official. "That's because he did not play the corresponding T20 match." |
