Chris Gayle: only human after all

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

THE last time Chris Gayle was at the Wanderers, he left without being proved human. Instead, he smashed 90 off 41 balls in the second T20 between SA and West Indies. Two days earlier at Newlands, he had drilled 77 off 31.

But that was then, this is now - the one-day series reaches the second of five matches in Johannesburg on Sunday. In the first game at Kingsmead on Friday, SA were easily the better team in all departments against opponents who lost the plot after they lost their first wicket.

It belonged to Gayle, who threw his bat at everything he faced in Durban. Soon, he also threw his wicket away.

“That’s the nature of Chris,” Jason Holder, the visitors’ captain, said with too much kindness.

Originally chasing 229 to win off 33 overs after a deluge shortened the match, the Windies needed Gayle to bat like the senior player he is. He did not, and got himself out for 41. That he faced only 24 balls was neither here nor there. His team needed him to stay at the crease, not put himself about the place like the millionaire mercenary that T20 has turned him into.

SA will be relieved to have seen for themselves that Gayle is indeed human. But, having depended on him too heavily to win the T20 series, that truth came as a shock to the West Indians. Without Gayle, their innings lost shape and direction as they dwindled to defeat.

The Windies’ other major batsman, Marlon Samuels, first proved his humanity by playing a poor stroke in the third test at Newlands and has done so since several more times.

But SA also have questions to answer on Sunday. At Kingsmead, Faf du Plessis recorded his first duck in 61 innings in the format, while Rilee Rossouw fell without scoring for the fifth time in 10 innings. JP Duminy, on his way back from a knee injury, is patently short of match practice. Farhaan Behardien, meanwhile, has reached 50 only once in his last 15 completed innings in the two limited overs formats.

All four are in the squad for the World Cup that will start for SA with a match against Zimbabwe in Hamilton on February 15. However, so are Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, David Miller, who all scored half-centuries on Friday. Miller’s 70 ended a run of five innings in a SA ODI or T20 shirt in which he had not scored a 50.

“I’m embarrassed to be standing here with the man-of-the-match trophy,” De Villiers said. “David Miller played much better than me. He looked like he was playing on a different wicket to the rest of us.”

It’s the middle order, where Miller does his work, that needs work before SA go to the World Cup. When Miller was dismissed in the 40th over, SA were 238/4: cleared for take-off. Then they nosedived and lost five wickets for 34 runs.

There is less hopefulness to report for the West Indians going into Sunday’s match. Gayle’s innings on Friday, brief and irresponsible though it was, was their most notable attempt to chase down the target.

Dale Steyn replaced Morne Morkel in the sixth over, and he needed just four deliveries to undo Gayle. The rest of the Windies’ wickets tumbled for 113 runs.

Have the teams done their homework for Sunday? The Wanderers awaits.