Simply brilliant!
Published:Sunday | April 28, 2013 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
Orville Higgins' column 'Chris Gayle can save Test cricket' (Gleaner, April 26, 2013) was brilliant! Simply brilliant!
I don't know how many times I have told Gayle detractors (on Caribbean Cricket chat line) that the matter of a batsman's footwork depends a lot on the height of the batsman. The best batsmen are generally shorter men (Brian Lara, Rohan Kanhai, Lawrence Rowe, George Headley, Sachin Tendulkar, Alvin Kallicharran, Everton Weekes, Hanif Mohamad, Sunil Gavaskar, Peter May, Len Hutton and others), and they excelled in footwork. They had to.
Gayle, a much taller specimen, does not need that kind of footwork as much, especially since he has this wide stance.
Interestingly, the wide stance also seems to work for shorter batsmen. I first noticed it more than 20 years ago when an Australian joined our cricket team here in Ottawa. A powerful hitter in the mould of Gayle, he was punishing off back foot as well as the front foot and did not have to move either foot around as much as we had been taught. He was not tall either!
It will be interesting to see the reaction of our batting coaches.
EWART WALTERS