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THE BOWLERS
DID A TERRIFIC JOB – GAYLE
Date Posted: June 13, 2008.
BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS – West Indies captain Chris Gayle was
lavish in praise for his bowlers after they reduced
Australia to 111 for 5 and had the world champions in a
corner at 226 for 7 at the end of a rain curtailed first day
of the Third Digicel Test at the Kensington Oval on
Thursday.
"They (the bowlers) have been doing a terrific job for the
last couple of Test matches and to continue in this game is
really good and it is just to finish off on a high now,"
Gayle told reporters at the end of the first day's play
which allowed 56.4 overs until heavy showers in the final
session brought an end to the day's proceedings.
Gayle singled out his irrepressible all rounder Dwayne Bravo
who took three wickets for 48 runs from 12.4 overs for
special praise.
"Bravo did well, extremely well, always picking up wickets
for us, Bravo can come in the middle and get a few wickets,"
Gayle said of his 24 year old medium fast bowler who
accounted for the wickets of Michael Hussey (12), Michael
Clarke (0) and top scorer Andrew Symonds who made 52.
Jerome Taylor the Jamaican fast bowler made the initial
breakthrough when a short delivery was skied by Phil Jaques
(31) and Denesh Ramdin, the wicketkeeper, made a stunning
catch running all the way to fine leg. Taylor then made the
Australian captain Ricky Ponting (18) extremely
uncomfortable for a spell then as is almost customary
dislodged him via the lbw route.
In eight encounters in international cricket Taylor has
accounted for Ponting on six of those occasions and must now
be considering claiming the Aussie skipper as his 'bunny'.
In the Second Digicel Test in Antigua Taylor dismissed
Ponting on both occasions for scores of 65 and 38.
Previously Taylor had sent Ponting packing in One Day
Internationals in 2006 for scores of 6, 1 and a duck.
Gayle noted that the West Indies team needs to get over the
hurdle of taking the first five wickets then getting stuck.
"At the end we were stuck at five (wickets) for a while
which we always do, we're always stuck at five and we have
to try and push on and knock over the middle and lower
order," Gayle reasoned.
The powerful left hander who is set to return to his main
job of opening the West Indies innings after missing the
First and Second Digicel Tests due to a groin injury reckons
that the pitch is not a nightmarish one for batting.
"It is a decent wicket to bat on after the shine comes off
the ball, then basically there is not a lot of sideways
movement so once you dig in and decide you're going to bat
on that track, it's very good," Gayle analysed.
"It has generated pace, it is a bit quicker now, this
morning it was a bit slow, it's getting quicker, the surface
is drying out now so obviously the ball is going to come on
more to the bat, once you apply yourself you will get runs
out there," the big Jamaican power hitter reckoned.
