Chris Gayle Fireworks Prove His Worth to Test Cricket

It is possible that Chris Gayle has just played his last Test innings in England. He might have preferred somewhere more glamorous – or certainly warmer – for the occasion, but if it was to be his farewell, at least he put one heck of a show.

There have not been many Test captains who could play with such sangfroid with their side 259 runs behind on first innings, especially when there were calls for them to lose their job. But then there have not been many Test captains as insouciant as Chris Gayle.

It would be madness if Gayle turned his back on Test cricket at 29. It is to be hoped that his downcast pre-match assertion that he would not be sad if Test cricket died out, that his body could not take a whole lot more, and that these days Twenty20 cricket is where it's at, is tempered once he gets a break and feels the sun on his back and some music in his head. For that to happen, the sooner cricket's overcrowded international calendar is reduced the better.

But if leave he does then 54 from 43 balls, with six fours and two sixes, was a nice ­little parting gift. When Gayle hoists sixes, he really does hoist, as James Anderson discovered when he suffered a steepling blow over long-on. Stuart Broad was almost cut for another six. Graham Onions was lifted over long-on for six and then pulled so savagely that the crack could be heard through soundproofed windows.

It was uplifting stuff, ended when he fended a lifting ball from Onions to slip. With great defiance, he had played an IPL innings in the middle of a Test match. If it was ­anyone else but Gayle, it would have smacked of a protest. With Gayle, one of the boldest, most independently-minded ­hitters in the game, it was impossible to tell.

It would be good to know what all that head shaking was about when he reached his fifty. It is to be hoped that an England fielder had just asked him if it really was his last Test innings in England. To ensure that he does not call time, the ICC must see sanity and reduce the schedule. Please. We want to see him again.