GROS ISLET, St Lucia, CMC – Veteran Chris Gayle has warned opposing teams not to take West Indies lightly, despite their underdogs status heading into the ICC World Cup later this year.
The Caribbean side are ranked ninth in the world and have already been written off by pundits but Gayle said that once they played their natural brand of cricket, they could make a mark at the May 30 to July 14 showpiece in England.
“The World Cup is always going to be a pressure tournament and no one is looking at us as favourites so we shouldn’t put ourselves under strenuous pressure,” he told reporters.
“We should just go out there and play according to how we know to play which is the Caribbean style of cricket and eventually teams will fear us and respect us.”
Gayle announced his intention to be part of the World Cup squad prior to the start of the ongoing England one-day series and has all but sewn up his spot, with two exhilarating hundreds and a half-century in his three innings.
His 162 in Wednesday’s fourth match was his 25th ODI hundred and took him past the 10 000-run mark in the shorter format. He is only the second West Indies batsman behind Brian Lara to achieve the feat. The 39-year-old Gayle, who also announced he would retire following the World Cup, said reaching the landmark had been a satisfying accomplishment, but stressed he needed to stay in shape in order to be at his best in coming months.
“I just have to work on the body and then maybe you can see a bit more of Chris Gayle but to get to such a milestone is a great feeling,” he noted.
“I’ve done it in T20 cricket and now in 50-overs cricket, it’s a fantastic achievement from the point of view of my career. Hopefully I can carry on and get more runs and you never know, things [can] change quickly in the next couple of months.”
He added: “I’ve been playing a lot of T20 cricket so it was always going to be a bit difficult coming back into 50-overs cricket but eventually the body gets accustomed again.”
England set West Indies a massive 419 to win the fourth ODI in Grenada and thanks to
Gayle’s fireworks, the Windies only just came up short by 29 runs, bowled out for 389 with two overs remaining.
“I thought it was a great game. To be able to get 160 – it was a fantastic knock – and it’s a great feeling to get to another milestone by scoring another century,” he said.
“There are a lot of positives to still take out of the game even though we lost by [29] runs. There are just some simple areas we can look at and see where we went wrong. That key middle over where (Shimron) Hetmyer and (Darren) Bravo got out – I thought that over actually changed the game.”
He added: “I think this one of the most entertaining games I’ve played in, to be honest. I don’t know how many sixes were hit … but it was a fantastic game of cricket.”