When Chris Gayle said he wouldn't really mind if Test cricket died, he showed himself to be the kind of person that makes me flail my arms wildly, look imploringly at the ceiling, and shed fat tears while sniffling noisily - the kind of person who's gifted at sport but doesn't really love sport.
And Chris Gayle, sadly, isn't the only example of that kind of person in the universe.
Accompanying me right through my schooldays, sitting next to me in class and walking down corridors alongside me, were guys, in not insubstantial numbers, who had far more natural sporting talent than me but cared more for, as the years went by, the Backstreet Boys, Joey Tribbiani and Quentin Tarantino than Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid.
This, I'm sure you'll agree, is like being slapped repeatedly in the face by a sodden wicketkeeping glove, for a sports-tragic who never managed to find a place in his school's cricket team. I don't mind people who merely have a lukewarm interest in cricket. I resent people who have a lukewarm interest in cricket and swat insouciant sixes.
Chris Gayle strikes me as falling into this category of cricketer, the category of cricketer that would find poring through old scorecards at Cricket Archive late at night, marveling at P.G. Wodehouse's all-round talent, a daft thing to do.
I suspect, sadly, that most gifted cricketers are like that.
And Chris Gayle, sadly, isn't the only example of that kind of person in the universe.
Accompanying me right through my schooldays, sitting next to me in class and walking down corridors alongside me, were guys, in not insubstantial numbers, who had far more natural sporting talent than me but cared more for, as the years went by, the Backstreet Boys, Joey Tribbiani and Quentin Tarantino than Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid.
This, I'm sure you'll agree, is like being slapped repeatedly in the face by a sodden wicketkeeping glove, for a sports-tragic who never managed to find a place in his school's cricket team. I don't mind people who merely have a lukewarm interest in cricket. I resent people who have a lukewarm interest in cricket and swat insouciant sixes.
Chris Gayle strikes me as falling into this category of cricketer, the category of cricketer that would find poring through old scorecards at Cricket Archive late at night, marveling at P.G. Wodehouse's all-round talent, a daft thing to do.
I suspect, sadly, that most gifted cricketers are like that.
