It feels like at any time, somewhere, Chris Gayle is hitting someone for six

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jan/13/the-spin-chris-gayle-hitting-six

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GAYLE BLOWS HIS OWN WAY

There is a story about Chris Gayle, now as well-worn as the old pair of pads under the bench at the back of the changing room. The punchline is a little offensive, so if you’re squeamish skip ahead to the next paragraph. It was at Arundel, back in 2004. West Indies were playing a tour match against the MCC. There was a dinner one evening during the match, hosted by John Barclay, old Etonian, once-and-then-future president of the MCC, and as Mike Selvey puts it in his version of the tale, “all-round good egg”. Barclay, keen to kickstart the conversation, launched into a disquisition about his own recollections of Jamaica; the beaches at Boston Bay, the Blue Mountains, Dunn’s River Falls, that sort of thing. On and on he went, until he finally paused to take breath. At which point Gayle turned to him and said: “You get much pussy?”

Time was when the anecdote seemed to provide a rare insight into the character of a man who has never been keen to give much of himself away in interviews, especially since he told Anna Kessel that he “wouldn’t be so sad” if Test cricket died. It was a surprise when he let on, in an idle moment during a press conference, that he planned to spend the money he won in the Stanford Super Series on a heart operation for his brother. These days, of course, anyone who wants an insight into Gayle’s character can find it on Twitter or Instagram, where he is the star of his very own social media sitcom – “Everybody Rates Chris”, as he calls it. Here, you can see him smoking a cigar in a Jacuzzi, while surrounded by women; sitting in a throne at his nightclub Triple Century, while surrounded by women; dancing at a pool party, while surrounded by women. You get the idea. And if you don’t, he’s always happy to clarify it for you.

Point being, Gayle has never much cared for mores and niceties, whether they’re in polite conversation or cricket. This is a man who once replied to a female journalist’s question about pitch conditions with the startlingly misogynistic line: “Well, I haven’t touched yours yet so I don’t know how it feels … I like your smile, that’s nice.” He seems to see opportunities everywhere he looks. Conventions are for other people. And in fact he seems to take a measure of pleasure in breaking them, which is why he is the first and only man in the history of cricket to hit a six off the opening ball of a Test match. The poor unfortunate who happened to be bowling at the time – Bangladesh’s Sohag Gazi, and on his debut too – dismissed Gayle four overs later. He was caught at long-off boundary after he charged down the pitch to try to hit the fifth boundary of his brief innings. CH Gayle c Mahmudullah b Sohag Gazi 24 (20m 17b 2x4 2x6; SR: 141.17).

After his final innings in international cricket, Gayle’s old team-mate Brian Lara said to the crowd at the Kensington Oval: “All I ask is, did I entertain? If I entertained you, I’m happy.” It is a sweet sentiment, even if those who remember his ferociously single-minded approach to run-scoring and record-breaking might wonder if he was being entirely sincere. You get the impression Gayle doesn’t worry whether he has entertained anyone else so much as he does about whether he has amused himself. Certainly there are few modern sportsmen so happy to self-indulge or so unabashed about their sybaritic lifestyle. He is a man who plays his own game, with his own rules.

Gayle has a good Test record – he has played 103 matches, averages 42, and has scored two triple centuries. But all that is secondary to his status in limited overs cricket, and T20 in particular. He has found his métier. There is hardly a record in the format he does not own. Most runs in a career, most runs in an innings, most runs in a series, most runs in a year, most runs on a single ground, most hundreds, fastest hundred, most 50s, most sixes in a career, most sixes in an innings, most runs in boundaries in an innings, most man-of-the-match awards. He has played for 14 teams spread across seven countries and five continents. It feels like at any time, somewhere in the world, Chris Gayle is hitting someone for six. He has hit one in every 10 balls he has faced in T20 cricket over the rope.

Gayle was at it again at the weekend. At Newlands on Friday he hit 77 off 41 balls, an innings that included a stretch of 52 from 11 consecutive scoring shots (6, 6, 6, 4, 6, 4, 2, 4, 6, 4, 4). The young kid who suffered the worst of it – 19-year-old Kagiso Rabada, “a thoroughbred” according to bowling coach Allan Donald – made the mistake of whistling a bouncer past Gayle’s head earlier in the innings. “He picked on me first,” Gayle explained afterwards. “He tried to knock my head off.” South Africa’s captain Faf du Plessis grumbled after the match that Gayle “makes them a very, very superhuman team”. And then at the Wanderers on Sunday Gayle followed up with 90 off 41 balls, as West Indies chased down 232, a record in international T20 matches. He was angry this time too, only his ire was aimed at his own side rather than the opposition. When the match was over he lashed out at his own selectors, led by Clive Lloyd, for their decision to leave Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo out of the World Cup squad.

“How can those two guys not be in the team?” Gayle asked. He suspects – not without reason – that they are being punished for the role they played leading the players’ revolt during the tour of India in October. “To me it got to be like victimisation when you look at it towards those two guys. Come on, guys. It is just ridiculous. Really hurt. Ridiculous. Honestly, it throw me off.”

Gayle himself has just turned down the board’s offer of a retainer contract for 2015. As ever, he prefers to blow his own wild way. There is little sense in trying to contain or restrain him. If you’re a spectator sit back and smile, if you’re an administrator just shrug, and if you’re the opposition put your hands together and pray.

• This is an extract taken from the Spin, the Guardian’s weekly cricket email. To subscribe, just visit this page, find ‘The Spin’ and follow the instructions.