By Tony Cozier
IT IS only his second match at home as West Indies cap-tain but the Test starting at the Queen’s Park Oval presents a timely examination of Chris Gayle’s leadership.
Such an unlikely choice to fill the breach left by Ramnaresh Sarwan’s injury on the tour of England last summer that his nomination by the selectors was originally rejected by the WICB, the laid-back Jamaican soon produced the inspiration that lifted his team.
There were the rare overseas successes in the one-day series in England, followed by the first genuine Test victory in seven years away from home, in South Africa six months later, when Sarwan was again absent.
Such results, added to Jamaica’s triumph in the regional KFC Cup one-day tournament last October and combined with the uncommon, public praise from his players and from the iconic team manager, Clive Lloyd, guaranteed his reinstatement for the current series, in spite of Sarwan’s return to fitness.
Suddenly, a sequence of events over the past few weeks have turned the positives into negatives and left Gayle’s status in question.
One of the most devastating opening batsmen of his era, his decision to demote himself down the order in the final of the Stanford 20/20 tournament in February and, more significantly, in the second innings of the first Test after falling for the seventh time to his Sri Lankan nemesis, Chaminda Vaas, indicated an open lack of self-belief.
It was a trait never previously associated with Gayle.
Indeed, quite the opposite. The effects on his own players and, just as significantly, on the opposition were not difficult to imagine.
But there have been other worrying signs recently.
After Jamaica were beaten for the first time this season in the Carib Beer Cup – after winning their first three matches under Tamar Lambert while he recovered from injury – he bitterly criticised the umpires in a television interview and hinted at a conspiracy against Jamaica whenever they ventured to the southern Caribbean.
It was a tirade unbecoming of a West Indies captain and specifically against the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) code of discipline. Yet there has been no retraction from Gayle and, not surprisingly, no action from the WICB.
Soon, Gayle was telling an Australian newspaper that he was unsure whether he would be available for the first two Tests of the later home series against Australia because of his contract – worth US$800,000 –with the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Whether he realised it not, it was a worrying sign of where his preferences lay.
Perhaps, for all its hype and money, he has been distracted by the understandable uncertainty surrounding the IPL. Perhaps the effects of the poisoned chalice that is the West Indies captaincy have begun to take effect.
Now the West Indies enter the second Test already one down against buoyant opponents ranked No.3 on the International Cricket Council (ICC) Test table to their No.8.
To be truly competitive, they need their captain to lead from the front and for him to dismiss the ramifications of the IPL and the threat of Vaas’s swinging new ball from his thoughts and return to the assertive confidence that previously typified his captaincy and his batting.
It is what the West Indies need and expect.
