With just that one innings of 77 against the Gujarat Lions on 18 April, Chris Gayle has been experiencing a slump in form this IPL season. In eight innings he has racked up a rather paltry 152 runs at an average of 19.00.
The Jamaican has been something of a T20 pioneer; the Bradman of the format he has been called; one of its most sought-after soldiers for hire. He has compiled the most hundreds, hit the most boundaries, exhibits the most swagger, and owns the most runs in the game, recently crossing the 10,000-run mark. The player next on the list, Brendon McCullum, has over 2,000 fewer.
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His strike rate this season is 121.60. But if you set aside the riotous 77 he made off only 38 deliveries, it is clear that this has not been the Chris Gayle the fans flocked to and the other teams feared. Those other seven innings yielded just 75 runs at an average of 12.50 and at a horrid strike rate of 87.20.
Nobody in their right mind doubts the capability of the game’s most powerful and reliable hitter. But his recent record allude to an unmistakable decline. Last season wasn’t that great for the opener either, as 227 runs from 10 innings will attest, and it would certainly appear that Gayle’s days as the IPL’s chief destroyer are long gone.
Gayle was at his zenith during the 2011-2013 seasons. Easily the IPL’s most dominant batsman in that period, he finished at the top of the run-scoring list in 2011 and 2012 before slipping to second in 2013. His totals were 608, 733 and 708 runs respectively and his lowest average in those three seasons was 59.
Having not reached those heights since, and with him spluttering along the way he has done these past two seasons, there is one inevitable question that arises: Will Chris Gayle ever return to his routine best, or are we witnessing the steady decline of his outsized powers?
The batsman is now 37, an age at which a dip in form, especially a prolonged one, is often viewed as terminal. And while some have been known to carry on well past that age, we all are different and so age at different rates.
In the end, however, time overpowers all athletes, regardless of how great they are and regardless of how strenuously they struggle against the creeping corrosion that advanced age brings. Past a certain point, age comes accompanied by regression. Reaction time slows; eyesight becomes less acute; fast-twitch muscle fibres decrease. The body becomes less effective at transporting oxygen, leading to less aerobic capacity, and the body takes more time to recover from exertion.
Such maladies, of course, are irreversible, and so once they set in there can be no turning back. That is not to say that Gayle will no longer be able to script the grand, stirring innings he has come to be known for. On his last legs, and clearly no longer the hitter he was in his prime, Babe Ruth stood up in one of his last games and blasted two homeruns that recalled headier days and had the fans jumping in the stands. Gayle’s great performances, however, once a matter of course, have already become less colossal and now occur far less frequently.
We don’t know, as of now, if the drop in his level of production is due to the deleterious effects of age. But we are surely at the stage where such contemplations are unavoidable. And the longer the slump persists the more often the questions will be raised and the louder the voices asking them will become.
It has to be mentioned that Gayle’s team, the Royal Challengers Bangalore, has so far endured a dastardly run this season. How could any team staffed by players like Gayle, Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Shane Watson, Samuel Badree, Kedar Jadhav and Stuart Binny win only two games out of twelve? How could a team with batsmen of such pedigree fall in a heap game after frustrating game, and be languishing at the bottom of the league below teams with far less stellar talent?
It is as if they have been infected with a debilitating disorder that has enveloped the entire side; one they have failed to properly diagnose; one from which they have so far been powerless to extricate themselves.
Their predicament has been a source of bemusement. To think that none of the great batsmen within their ranks is positioned in the top ten in terms of runs scored, with the competition well past the half-way stage, beggars belief. Could it therefore be possible that Gayle is simply suffering from the same malady, whatever it is, that is affecting de Villiers and Kohli and Watson?
Great player that he has been, Gayle will surely be allowed some latitude. Good form, after all, flees at some point from every batsman not named Bradman. The left-hander is apparently convinced that he is not done yet. After the knock that catapulted him past 10,000 runs he said this:
People are still looking out for Chris Gayle. The universe boss is still here and still alive. It has been fantastic and like I said still I have a lot more to offer to the fans. Hopefully, I can keep entertaining and get a few more thousand runs under my belt.Chris Gayle
Those of us who enjoy watching balls climb into the stands with regularity, share his faith.
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