Gayle Storm

What happened yesterday can either be called a treat to the eyes or a shock treatment. I am talking about the way Chris Gayle butchered Pune Warriors bowlers during his 175 not out knock. It was a treat for those who just enjoyed Gayle's batting, shock for those (like me) who have connections with Pune and in spite of all odds somewhere wish to see PW winning.

I wrote about Chris Gayle earlier and yesterday he gave me another opportunity to write again about him. It was a phenomena that happened yesterday in Bangalore.  People called it Gayle storm. He once again proved that he is in a different league than all other cricket players when it comes to twenty:twenty matches. He in a complete package in himself. Let it be then his batting, bowling, dancing or appealing to umpire. He himself  is enough to write history. People are even modifying the name of city Bangalore to Bangaluru to Ban"Gayle"uru. 

Yesterday he took away the match out of the PW's hands in just 30 initial balls he faced. The fastest century in the cricket history. I just kept wondering, is it so easy for him to keep hitting up to 3-4 sixes in every other over he faced? 

I tried to analyze whole match to come to some conclusions about what happened yesterday.

Gayle surely is one of the best hard hitters we have seen in years. I wonder why some times he is so brutal as yesterday and otherwise relatively soft as with Rajasthan Royals (49 of 44 balls). I guess the difference lies between the bowling attack.

I feel Pune Warrior has one of the worst bowling attacks we have ever seen. They basically have no bowling attack. I wonder what Donald must be doing in PW camp with no bowler to train. Except for Bhuvneshwar Kumar, there is no sensible bowler in the team. Out of 263 runs showered by Pune Warriors bowlers his contribution was hardly 23 runs. Out of 24 balls he bowled, Gayle surely faced few. He should be appreciated for his efforts with ball on such  an odd day for bowlers.

Other bowler in the squad is Dinda who is very passionate and mostly try to ball faster and faster balls.When he gets his yorkers right, they are fantastic but mostly they end up full toss balls. 

Then PW have bowlers like Mitchel Marsh, Luke Wright who are not known to be regular bowlers as far as my knowledge in cricket goes. Best spin attack PW has is Rahul Sharma who fortunately (for him) did not play yesterday.

If reports are to be believed, yesterday's Gayle knock has a lot to do weak attack from PW. Gayle hardly faced any difficult ball. Fast bowlers were giving him good length bowls to hit longest sixes known and since it rained, spin attack was bound to get effected.

Third important thing to know is the captaincy issue. PW has hardly played 6 matches and they already have 3 different captains. I am not sure who is planning for PW, but he surely doesn't seem to have any clue about cricket and leading a sports team.A captain should be a figure who rest of the players would like to follow. Either by experience or by game, he should be one step above rest of the squad. PW don't have much options there. I hardly have heard about Finch as a player. Just because he played one game winning knock he shouldn't be entitled Captain's cap. Yesterday he was clueless and apparently just wanted to get through the overs. I wonder why he did not bring Pandey again in attack. Why he did not tried Nayar when every body else was tried and failed. In batting line up, he had no strategy to go for such a big chase. Am really not sure why Angelo Mathews and Ross Taylor are out of team. At any time, Mathews could prove much useful player than Finch or for that reason even Mitchel Marsh. Ross Taylor has experience. It was his plan of giving Nayar a chance to bowl that worked in one of the earlier matches.  Taylor can still come good with bat playing useful knock. PW should stick with one of these two players as a captain for rest of the season.

No doubt Gayle's inning yesterday was one of the best knocks in the history of cricket and there was no chance PW or any other team could survive an  attack as brutal as yesterday. But it is a fault on PW bowling and captaincy which allowed his attack to turn this big. Gayle is difficult to manage but surely not impossible  if you have a strategy for him.