4th July 2019

Ambrose dismisses Gayle’s retirement claims

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By SSO

Windies bowling legend Curtly Ambrose has dismissed the idea of veteran batsman Chris Gayle playing what would amount to a farewell Test Series against India next month.

The 39 year old Windies talisman was expected to announce his retirement from international cricket following the ICC World Cup. The big left hander seemed to have a change of heart during the tournament and targeted India’s tour of the West Indies as his final appearance.

Never one to shy away from speaking his mind, Sir Curtly has flatly rejected any type of sentimental appearance for the opener, and he describe Gayle’s plans for going beyond the World Cup as nonsense.

According to him Gayle has not played Test Cricket for five years and he can barely make it in a One Day International, with long period in the field. He reckons a Test match is five days, six hours a day and he hasn’t done it for five years.

What Kind of message would it send to one of the opening batsmen he quipped? He should bow out of this World Cup gracefully. He’s done extremely well for West Indies in world cricket but you bow out.

In other related news, Ambroise believes a new generation of West Indies cricketers must lose the label of power hitting team if they are to take another major step in a positive direction.

Heading into the ongoing ICC World Cup, the Windies were picked as a dark horse by pundits and fans alike, in part due to a powerful batting line up.

Despite boasting a few inexperienced players, however, Ambroise believes the team’s issues are down to the boundary first mentality of several players.

He further went on to say that he don’t think there is anything wrong with their skills, rather they need to put some thought into their cricket.

If they can think situations through a little bit better they can get over that last hurdle he added. You have to respect good bowling at times, he further went on to say, they have this notion that they are power hitter and they can hit boundaries Even though the bowling is really good they still believe they can blast their way out.

Definitely that’s not how cricket is played as you have to respect good bowling. You wait and you keep the ones and twos going which they don’t do often.

So when they are not getting boundaries, they are still not getting the ones and twos. So they try even harder to get the boundaries and keep getting out.

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