File photo of West Indies' former cricketer Chris Gayle
Credit: Reuters Photo
Barbados: Not one to mince the words, Chris Gayle asked the International Cricket Council to consider abolishing the concept of co-hosts. The West Indian legend opined that that move would actually profit the countries more than a split format.
This edition of the World Cup was played in the United States of America and the West Indies with India traversing both these regions from Group A.
“It’s good that the World Cup was held in these regions but I wish the World Cup would be held in either one or the other place,” said Southpaw on Friday night. “A country should have a fair chance to host the World Cup. Rather than doing it like this. I don’t know the reason behind it but it should stop. I think it’s good for the US, though. It was needed for them. It would be nice if the US hosted the World Cup by themselves and made it more profitable as well. It’s a very big market.
“In the Caribbean, we need to uplift our cricketers so we need these big events. We have to earn back the love of the people,” he added.
Gayle, who has had a long-standing relationship with Virat Kohli at the Indian Premier League with the Royal Challengers Bangalore, insisted that he was going to come good at some point, and this event and the way he has played here won’t tarnish his legacy.
“These things happen to superstars such as Virat. He has been so dominant in so many World Cups. That could happen to anybody. The good thing is that he’s in the final and sometimes big players step up on the big days, they win when it matters, and you cannot write him off. We know how special he is. We just have to wait and see how special he is in the final,” he said. “But the real point is that it won’t matter even if he has a bad tournament. He has done so much for cricket so so long. This will not drag his reputation down or anything like that. He’s the man. That won’t change.”
In typical Gayle fashion, he also said that he would’ve shown these batters how to get the job done on these wickets. Given the nature of the pitches in the Americas, it has been difficult for the batters to get going. Some have been downright dangerous (US) and others have been slow and hard to find timing on.
“Yeah, I wish I was there to show them how it’s done (laughs). I wouldn’t blame the wicket for sure,” he said. "Been a low-scoring World Cup for sure, the wicket has been on the slower side at times, and a bit on and off. But the bowler needs to get the edge from time to time, so that’s good. But I think Barbados is probably the best T20 wicket in the Caribbean at this World Cup. The wickets in the States were a bit jet lagged (drop-in pitches that were shipped from Adelaide) as well (laughs), it was tired pretty much all the time, and it didn’t have the time to recover properly. That’s why it has been low scoring there."
Speaking about the West Indies failing to go past the Super Eight stage, Gayle noted that they made some mistakes with team selections and didn’t use their experience as well as they could’ve.
“That’s pretty much on me, I have to sit down and call a general meeting to explain,” he said when asked if he would talk to the players. “These guys are senior guys, they are senior guys. They have played two or three World Cups some of them. It’s not like we have a lot of young guys coming through. We’re very experienced. They have played good cricket, and they have won quite a few series leading up to the World Cup as well. They have played good cricket, but they have made some mistakes. They have to be level-headed at big events, you have to stick to certain players and give them leverage, that’s where the inconsistency comes in. That really cost us our progress.
“One such call would be against South Africa, Johnson Charles being left out in that crucial game, they messed up. They didn’t get it right,” he added.