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    World Cup 2015: Chris Gayle's double century and team's win ensures West Indies is back on the track

    Synopsis

    215 runs, 147 balls, 10 fours, 16 sixes and all in the 212 minutes – that was the marauding left-handed West Indian on Tuesday. It was his 22nd ODI century.

    By Chetan Narula

    Two new balls, five fielders inside the 30-yard circle at all times, hefty bats, and helpful pitches – the dice is always rolled in favour of the batsmen. It only remained to be seen who would become the first to put it to good effect in the 2015 World Cup. For, since this tournament got underway, there was a lurking excitement in the air. The first-ever One Day International World Cup doublehundred was coming.

    Could Rohit Sharma add a third one to his tally? Would AB de Villiers smash the quickest double-hundred and add to his fastest century? Or would it be Brendon McCullum at the pint-sized Eden Park in Auckland? No, they all watched as Chris Gayle provided the answer against Zimbabwe at the Manuka Oval.

    215 runs, 147 balls, 10 fours, 16 sixes and all in the 212 minutes – that was the marauding left-handed West Indian on Tuesday. It was his 22nd ODI century and he reached the threedigit-mark after a gap of 19 months. If you really want a further idea of his poor run of form, he scored more runs in this one knock in Canberra than in his last 12 ODI innings put together, stretching back to July 2013. During this interim, he had one fifty, a high-score of 58. Maybe this handsome knock was inevitable. After all, Sachin Tendulkar scored the firstever ODI double hundred on this day back in 2010. Perhaps there is something about this day that makes batsmen come alive and want to flay bowlers all over the park. South Africa and Zimbabwe are neighbours. Now, their bowling attacks can exchange notes.

    Or maybe, this knock was a derivative of the criticism Gayle received from the Windies’ board (WICB) president Dave Cameron, who, this past week, tweeted a fan’s comment against the batsman. While their players’ association took exception to it, Gayle decided to take matters into his own hands. It was no surprise since these Windies players perform best when ex-cricketers/administrators come out against them publicly. Remember Dinesh Ramdin and his outburst against Sir Viv Richards? Maybe it should be done more often for the betterment of this team.

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    Gayle replied then, by scoring the quickest ODI double-century beating Virender Sehwag’s record in the only manner he knows how. He started off calmly, slowly by his standards, getting 51 runs off 50 balls. The next fifty runs came even slower, off 54 balls. Ordinarily he would go after the bowling by this point of time in his innings but at 35, there is also a wiser voice in his head telling him to go for the long haul.

    Perhaps it was the fans’ comments too. “A lot of them tweeted about it after Rohit Sharma got two doublehundreds,” Gayle said, in the innings’ break. It isn’t too hard to guess what went through his mind when he reached his hundred off the first ball of the 36th over. He had faced 104 balls at that point in time, hit five fours and an equal number of sixes. With almost 15 overs left then, Zimbabwe never knew what hit them.

    He faced only 34 balls in those death overs. Off the first 22, he scored one more four and another five sixes. Off the next 12, he hit three fours and another six sixes. To say that he gal loped to become the first non-Indian batsman to get to an ODI double hundred would be an understatement. And it almost didn’t happen, for an umpire’s call despite a Zimbabwean DRS appeal against a close LBW shout meant he was safe. In all, Gayle faced 59 dot balls, scoring his runs off a mere 88 deliveries, maximising his scoring shots.

    So much so that Marlon Samuels, at the other end, scored a hundred and it went completely amiss from the minds of those watching. When Gayle is in such destructive mood, you become an ordinary mention on the scorecard, and Samuels learnt that to his credit on the day.

    From a Zimbabwean point of view, this will be an extra-ordinary moment in time that denied them any chance whatsoever of competing in this match, as they lost by 73 runs (via D/L method). For the West Indies though, this innings couldn’t have come at a better time.

    Losing to Ireland in their opening game ought to have dented their confidence, particularly with how the dressing room was reeling under the Indian-tour-boycott aftershocks. They showed steely determination to beat Pakistan comprehensively by 150 runs, proving they weren’t here to just make up the numbers. The toporder still lacked runs though.

    With Gayle waking up from his slumber, it is a threat to the opposition that the West Indies mean business. This warning will not go unnoticed, particularly as Ireland take on the UAE in Brisbane on Wednesday.


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