Chris Gayle is a Twenty20 cricketer who can’t play Test innings

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Chris Gayle sloping around with his massive long armsThat’s Chris Gayle’s reputation. We’ve been reading it all week as people say they didn’t know Gayle had it in him to bat the way he did against Australia in hitting 165 not out off 285 balls.

Really? You didn’t know that? Are you sure you weren’t just making a lazy stereotype of the man from his ‘Test cricket is dying’ pronouncements and the fact that he’s awesome at Twenty20?

His strike rate (runs scored per hundred balls) in that Adelaide innings was 57.89. Let’s compare that to his last three Test hundreds.

  • 60 in his 102 v England at Port of Spain
  • 53.88 in his 104 v England at Kingston
  • 49.74 in his 197 v New Zealand at Napier

Cats are surprised by someone yawning within 20 feet of them. Sheep are surprised by the sun coming up each morning. Cricket followers shouldn’t be surprised that good batsmen aren’t one-dimensional caricatures.

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5 comments

  1. Just shows how pointless most of his’ smash ’em and see’ attempts are at opening the innings though. If he played most of the time like he did at Adelaide, the Wist Indies would have decent starts frequently instead of a great run-rate and being 5 for 100.

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