While everyone in England has been focusing on Michael Vaughan’s resignation and KP’s appointment, over in Jamaica Chris Gayle has shown the level of political skill needed to stay captain.
After a reasonable test series against the Aussies (2-0 defeat but every match ran to 5 days) and a disastrous one-day series (5-0 loss), Gayle decided not to hang around and wait for the sack. Instead he resigned and let it be known that he was doing it because he disagreed with the Board's selection policy. I guess he was referring to the way spinners such as Amit Jaggernauth are picked and discarded more or less at random.
He timed it well, as the Windies cricket board was in the middle of a scandal. It’s not clear exactly what has been going on, but it’s something to do with details of the president’s house in St Lucia being leaked, leading to a few sacking and suspensions.
The result? Today Gayle has graciously decided to reconsider his resignation, after talking to players and fans etc etc. Presumably he now has a greater say in selection as well. Definitely a politician in the making. This tactic probably wouldn’t have worked for Vaughan, as the ECB is a stronger organization, but under-pressure Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik could consider trying this tactic.
After a reasonable test series against the Aussies (2-0 defeat but every match ran to 5 days) and a disastrous one-day series (5-0 loss), Gayle decided not to hang around and wait for the sack. Instead he resigned and let it be known that he was doing it because he disagreed with the Board's selection policy. I guess he was referring to the way spinners such as Amit Jaggernauth are picked and discarded more or less at random.
He timed it well, as the Windies cricket board was in the middle of a scandal. It’s not clear exactly what has been going on, but it’s something to do with details of the president’s house in St Lucia being leaked, leading to a few sacking and suspensions.
The result? Today Gayle has graciously decided to reconsider his resignation, after talking to players and fans etc etc. Presumably he now has a greater say in selection as well. Definitely a politician in the making. This tactic probably wouldn’t have worked for Vaughan, as the ECB is a stronger organization, but under-pressure Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik could consider trying this tactic.
This about-turn could also be further evidence of the IPL influencing cricket boards. Chris Gayle is a high-value IPL player and he may have threatened to walk away from the Windies altogether unless he was given more power as captain. There was also a lot of speculation last week that Pietersen’s appointment as England captain was designed to stop him defecting to the IPL. It will be interesting to see if other countries start following England and the West Indies' lead by appointing their best 20-20 players as captains. If so then we could soon see Misbah-Ul-Haq as captain of Pakistan and Brendon Mccullum in charge of New Zealand. Andrew Symonds captaining Australia would be fun, but is probably a bit of a long shot.
2 comments:
I think you make a very interesting point about the increase in value of players who are better suited to the Twenty20 format.
Previously aggressive, extroverted players had always sold tickets to cricket, but would always be regarded with a bit of suspicion by selectors. Chris Gayle was probably viewed as a bit of a luxury in the old days, and his place might be brittle.
Now that the money is following the guys who can hit the ball hardest and furthest, we might see a further injection of such players in all forms of the game (and as you write more of these players getting captaincy).
For the Windies, players like Dwayne Smith (now plying his trade as a Kolpak player, trying to qualify for England) could therefore be massive long term loss. Same goes for impressive young South Africans like Dawid Malan and Ryan McLaren.
This is fascinating stuff. I like his sunglasses.
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