New Delhi: Brian Lara looked worried and was on and on checking the scoreboard to see whether Chris Gayle during his innings of 317 against South Africa in 2005 was getting closer to his record, the latter claims in his autobiography.
“Some players do care about records. When Brian Lara was out for four in that match, he sat in the dressing-room and read a book. Occasionally he would go out onto the balcony and check the scoreboard, then go back inside. (Ramnaresh) Sarwan was watching him, because he was wondering. And every time Brian came out to see my score getting closer to his record, he looked more and more worried,” Gayle writes in “Six Machine: I Don’t Like Cricket…I Love It”.
He goes on to say, “When I came in for lunch and tea he didn’t say anything to me. No advice, no ‘Keep it going,’ no ‘Do it for the team.’ When I went back out he would go back to that slow shuttle: read inside on his own for a bit, come out to check my score, look worried.”
Gayle was out for 317 falling much short of Lara’s unimaginable score of 400 not out against England a year earlier. In 2010, Gayle went on to score another triple hundred, 333 against Sri Lanka.
“Six Machine: I Don’t Like Cricket…I Love It”, co-authored by Tom Fordyce and published by Penguin Random House, is replete with some explosive stories of Gayle including several of his encounters with women.
Gayle says people think he is arrogant and has no attitude towards the game of cricket.
“Maybe they misinterpret things. Maybe it’s the way I bat.
I play a lot of shots, and sometimes I get out. Maybe they think I don’t care. Maybe that’s how it looks on television, or through the pages of an old coaching manual. I play my shots and I get out. I get out on 40 so they say I don’t care as much as the man who gets out on five.
“Maybe it’s the women. Girls love me. I love the girls.
I’m a hot boy. Arrogant? Nah. This is how we do it in Jamaica, up front and honest. No pretending or stalling. And with the girls I’m good serious good,” he says. .
PTI
