Chris Gayle is Bollinger’s B****…

Well, the West Indies have lost to Australia again, and who got Chris Gayle out?  Yep, you guessed it… Douglas Bollinger.  He has gotten Chris Gayle out the last 5 times, including for a duck in the second of five one-dayers.  Now people are saying that Chris Gayle is Bollinger’s BUNNY (see the Cricinfo.com article here: Chris Gayle know’s he is Bollinger’s bunny)…  The word you were thinking is much stronger.

With Sarwan, Chanderpaul, and Taylor out of the series, everyone knew this was going to be tough going “down under” (in Australia).  But, after the bowling display by the WIndies in the drawn 3rd ODI, it was looking a lot better.  Well, in ODI 4 with the Aussies dropping 324 runs at a run rate of 6.48 or so, the Windies had their work cut out for them.  Gayle started the Windies reply with fire, hoping to lead from the front in the hopes of winning this one and then going into the final ODI with the hopes of leveling the series.  But, just as he got comfortable, Bollinger struck and it was a struggle with wickets and/or run-rate thereafter for the remaining Windies batsmen.

With Australia leading the 5 ODI series 3-0-1 (one drawn because of rain), the best West Indies can hope for now is to save face by:

• Winning the final ODI and making the series 3-1-1  (not as bad as 4-0-1 right?)
• Chris Gayle scoring at least a half century and, if he gets out, is dismissed by somebody other than Bollinger.

I must comment the following players however over the past 4 games however:

• Dwayne R (DR Smith)
• Ravi Rampaul
• Kieron Pollard
• Narsingh Deonarine

If the following players get dropped and don’t play in the next Windies series, I wouldn’t be the least bit unhappy:

• Runako Morton – wasn’t onboard with his selection – averaging 3.5 runs per game.
• Travis Dowlin – I thought he had something but showed nothing – averaging under 4 runs per game
• Lendl Simmons – huge disappointment with the bat – averaging just over 10 runs per game

With Gayle’s total runs scored (41 at an average of 13.66 perhaps the lowest for Gayle in a one-day series) being half the AVERAGE of his Australian counterpart (Ricky Ponting who is averaging a whopping 78 in the series), the pressure is going to be on him again.  Not just for the last ODI, but the issue of captaincy is going to be raised again.  That being said, Gayle is an excellent player and somewhat of an all-rounder, and a decent captain.  I think he will be OK.

What do you guys think?