CHRIS OF DEATH
Brutal Gayle ton has England fighting for survival
When doom merchants warned england that the result of this game would hinge on Chris Gayle’s mood, they didn’t know the half of it.
At the end of a harrowing night at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium, england’s latest bid to emerge from a World Cup with their dignity intact had taken such a dunking in the nearby Arabian Sea that they may struggle to catch their breath in time for tomorrow’s game against South Africa.
One match into the tournament, they already bear a haunted look.
That it was Gayle who humbled them was no great shock. Yet even by the standards of a man who calls himself World Boss, safe in the knowledge he can usually back it up, this was something else — a 47-ball century that included 11 sixes, many of them still rising into Mumbai’s night sky as the bowler turned on his heel and trudged back to his mark.
Only the South African pair of Richard Levi (45 deliveries) and Faf du Plessis (46) have scored faster centuries at this level. But it is hard to imagine anyone has hit the ball harder, further or with such lack of apparent effort.
Moeen Ali disappeared for four sixes, David Willey, Ben Stokes and Adil Rashid for two each, and Reece Topley for one. Only Chris Jordan escaped the crossfire. It was no kind of consolation.
By the end, as West Indies completed a six-wicket win with 11 balls to spare, Gayle had cleared the ropes in Twenty20 internationals 98 times, more than anyone, and coach Phil Simmons was comparing him with Viv Richards.
‘I was pumped today,’ said Gayle, flashing a familiar grin. ‘Before I went out, Sulieman Benn said, “entertain me”.’ And he did.
For england captain eoin Morgan, there was rather less to smile about. he knows that if AB de Villiers gets going for the South Africans, england’s prospects could be hanging by a thread only four days into the tournament.
‘Gayle did what he does,’ said Morgan. ‘he was outstanding today in conditions that favoured the bat more than the ball. Our plans were good, our execution was all right, but he’s a world-class player.’
Could england, attempting to defend a respectable 182 against a team full of players who have honed their trade in the Indian Premier League, have done anything differently against a man who now boasts 17 Twenty20 hundreds?
Opening with Ali’s off-breaks might have been worth a try, and they had success early on bowling short.
england weren’t helped by a ball deprived of its grip by the evening dew, and — after Marlon Samuels had made the early running with a 27-ball 38 — Gayle found his stride. Crucially, he went after Rashid — who has become Morgan’s go-to bowler — and bludgeoned him out of the attack with a pair of sixes which endangered spectators in the upper tier of the Garware Pavilion.
Gayle had begun that over on 22 off 16 balls, having been deprived of the strike while Samuels rode his luck.
Yet his next 78 runs needed only 31 deliveries as the bowlers queued up, like condemned men taking turns at the gallows. even when Topley had Dwayne Bravo caught off a full-toss to leave West Indies 113 for four, Gayle’s effect on the run-rate rendered the wickets column largely irrelevant.
england weren’t especially bad. They just weren’t especially good, either. Stokes, in particular, was off-colour with the ball, leaking 42 in three overs. There will be much talk of inexperience, and Morgan was happy to allude to the West Indian team’s greater exposure to the IPL.
But the brutal truth was they came up against a freakish player at the top of his game. It all meant england’s own innings passed into history with a speed it probably did not deserve.
Joe Root made a typically classy 48 from 36 balls, Jos Buttler — soon to become a Mumbai Indians player in the IPL — hit three sixes in his 30 from 20, and Morgan two in an unbeaten 27 from 14.
Yet West Indies kept grabbing the reins every time an english batsmen threatened to break loose, and Morgan admitted his side had been targeting 200.
even their eventual 182 for six might have been enough had Gayle gone early. But england had to make do with the first-over scalp of Johnson Charles, a couple of bloodcurdling appeals from Willey and only crumbs of comfort thereafter.
The West Indians, meanwhile, celebrated Gayle’s hundred with a dance move taken from Bravo’s recent song Champion. And Mumbai danced with them.