Chris Gayle—the tornado has turned 35

Chris Gayle, that raw force of nature that blows over cricket grounds like a hurricane, turned 35 on Sunday. That particular milestone in the journey a sportsman when one needs to pause and take careful stock of the future, especially if the success of one's methods depends on the quickness of the hand and the eye. And while he does so, it makes sense for us to cast a look at the deeds of the incredible stroke-player and the footsteps he has left in his wake.

Tempest, tornado, typhoon… the name Gayle, aided by its English derivative 'gale', is loaded with stormy synonyms. The man himself has lived up to his name to the hilt, producing innumerable blizzards with his bat, mostly with the white ball flying about like flurries of snow.

Indeed, even considering the new breed of batsmen produced by the modern game, Gayle is in a different class. Few in the history of the game have whacked the ball more ferociously, frequently and from the first instant. 

Yet, in spite of the 12 hundreds in Twenty20 cricket which marks him as one of the best exponents of that variety, he loses much of his lustre because of his much publicised sentiments about Test cricket. His laconic response to the Guardian's Anna Kessel, indicating that he would not be too sad if Test cricket died out, did not do much for his popularity. More so because he had been the captain of the West Indian Test team at that time. That marked him as a mercenary biffer of the cricket ball, a tribe the Test cricket aficionados have been known to view with disapproval.

With his wondrous deeds in T20 and his rather casual views about the purest form of the game, Gayle does come across a non-conformist. But, at the same time, there is no way to undermine his achievements in Test cricket. As I write, he has played 103 matches of the longest variety and has scored 7214 runs at 42.18.  His 15 hundreds include two triple centuries, scored against quality oppositions, in keenly-contested matches - a claim not all triple centurions can make. The 300s have come both at home and on the unfamiliar and demanding track of Galle. The only other men to have scored two triple hundreds in the 137-year history of Test cricket have been Don Bradman, Brian Lara and Virender Sehwag. 

In fact, no matter how intense are the frowns of the purists about Gayle's attitude and credentials, the numbers state that he is indeed one of the most accomplished opening batsmen of the Caribbean history- talking purely about Test cricket. If we consider his performance away from home, even after excluding Zimbabwe and Bangladesh he averages a creditable 43.11. That is higher than legendary West Indian opening batsmen like Gordon Greenidge (42.22), Desmond Haynes (33.50), Roy Fredericks (39.41) and Conrad Hunte (38.70). That should come as an eye-opener to many - even if we adjust for the relative eras, only Greenidge comes close in comparison. 

However, the revealing statistics notwithstanding, critics continue to look askance at Gayle's merits as a Test match batsman. When yours truly combined with Abhishek Mukherjee, the Editorial Head of Cricketcountry, to include Gayle as the partner of Greenidge in an All-Time West Indian Test XI, the reasons had been solid, statistical and straightforward. Yet, there were plenty of reactions which suggested Gayle did not deserve to be there. While part of it was due to the understandable statistical fuzziness that surround and add sheen to the hallowed names of the past, there were quite a few who based their objections on Gayle's attitude towards Test cricket and marked predilection for T20 leagues. 

Now, let us see whether he can be faulted for what are essentially his personal preferences. 

It is no secret that Gayle backs his explosive stroke-play and fully knows the value it brings to the shortest form of cricket. It is of course known that the shortest format is also the richest by far. Gayle has experienced the amount of money he can rake in from the IPL and other private leagues. In contrast, the less said about the West Indian cricket board the better. Mind you, one is not only talking about money here - the recognition meted out to cricketers leaves plenty to be desired. 

Gayle enjoys the wealth. His house, formerly a one-storey building, is now a huge flashy mansion with four garages, multiple swimming pools, a private cinema and nine bedrooms. He is entitled to making his fortune, and is justified in pursuing the best possible way to make his money -  especially given that he hails from a background as far from luxury as imaginable. 

Gayle grew up in a shack that he shared with five other siblings, with his father earning a meagre salary as a policeman and his mother selling peanuts to make ends meet. If he has been blessed with a talent that can make him enjoy an enviable lifestyle now, he is not obliged to shun it all for the sake of some abstract - and erroneous - concepts of cricketing purity.

Why erroneous? Because from the earliest days, every form of cricket was played with a very conspicuous eye on the money. Even Test matches came into being as a commercial venture, with cricketers throwing in their lot into voyages that were essentially business trips, jointly funding the initial cricket tours in order to make profits out of the Test matches and the other big games that they played along the way. 

Finally, as indicated, Gayle has hinted at a justifiable preference for T20, but has not really turned his back on Test cricket. Since he started playing Tests for West Indies, only four opening batsmen in the world have scored more runs than him. Gayle not only enjoys a creditable record as a Test opener, he makes runs at a rate and in a style that lends the much needed component of excitement to the longest format. His batting throbs with thrill across genres. He may just want riches from the game, but it cannot be denied that the game is richer because of him.

Now, as he turns 35, we wish him several more years of spectacular stroke-play - those huge ground clearing hits that have become part of the folklore of modern cricket.

Arunabha Sengupta is a cricket historian and Chief Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He writes about the history and the romance of the game, punctuated often by opinions about modern day cricket, while his post-graduate degree in statistics peeps through in occasional analytical pieces. The author of three novels, he can be followed on Twitter at @senantix.