The die has been cast and the stage set for the grand finale as the 18th Annual Kashif and Shanghai football tournament climaxes tonight.
Which team will carry home the first prize of $750,000 plus trophies and replicas is anybody’s guess when five times champions and seven times finalist Bakewell Topp XX takes on Georgetown’s dominant club and current premier league champions Alpha ‘The Hammer’ United tonight.
Topp XX has an added incentive. Public Relations Officer of the tournament Mark Bradford told Stabroek Sport that the team will receive $100,000 for every goal scored from the Bakewell firm.
En route to the finals, Topp XX took care of tournament debutants Monedderlust from West Berbice 4-0, and then took care of their Linden counterparts Net Rockers and Winners Connection 3-1 and 2-0 respectively.
Speaking with Stabroek Sport, Club Secretary, Beverly Mc Donald, said that tonight’s’ game would be a one-sided affair in favour of Topp XX.
“We are and have been the most dominant team in thephere in the team, which also works in favour of the cricket we play.” It certainly seemed so in the body language, the disciplined bowling, the application of the batsmen, the sharp fielding and the overall teamwork over the four days of the Test.
The recently appointed vice-captain, Dwayne Bravo, has described Gayle as being “free from agendas and completely honest”.
Daren Powell has spoken along the same lines. There are clearly other issues in the sudden transformation. New WICB president Julian Hunte’s peace pact with the WIPA that involved placing the previously hostile chief executive Dinanath Ramnarine on the board has meant that this is the first tour in years that has started without disagreement and rancour between the two organisations, removing such unwanted distractions from the team. The return of Clive Lloyd as manager and the arrival of the new coach, John Dyson, might also have had some effect although Lloyd has been there before and Dyson has only been there for less time than a Chanderpaul marathon.
It is Gayle’s relationship with his men that has been the main source. It began when he took over, as he has done here, for the limited-overs matches on the tour of England last summer following Ramnaresh Sarwan’s injury – and only after the selectors’ recommendation to install him had been rejected by then WICB president Ken Gordon and his executive committee. It took a vote of the entire board, after the selectors made known their intention to resign, to reinstate Gayle who proceeded let the world know what
he thought about it all – and then to lead the team to a share of the two Twenty20 Internationals and a 2-1 triumph in the ODIs.
The difference in every department after the 3-0 hiding in the Tests was as marked as it was in the Port Elizabeth victory.
When Sarwan, fit again, returned to the helm for the World Twenty20 tournament in South Africa Chris Gayle’s thumping 117 in the opening match against South Africa was cancelled out by bowlers who sent down 20 wides (in 18.4 overs, mind you) and fielders who spilled three vital catches. A loss to Bangladesh and elimination followed in the next match. Another Sarwan setback has brought Gayle back again with the same results as the first time. It is hardly simply coincidental. There is clearly something about the languid, 28-year-old Jamaican that, for all his super cool image and seeming lack of concern, makes him the leader West Indies cricket has needed for so long but sought to no avail. The honeymoon can’t last, of course. It never does. Tougher times are inevitably ahead, perhaps as soon as the next couple of weeks in this series. A barren patch with the bat, a couple of questionable tactical decisions, superior opponents and much more besides will test Gayle’s resolve and his players’ response to him. Yet his temperament is such that his philosophy is unlikely to change.
This is how he put it to the media following the Port Elizabeth Test:
“I just tell it like it is. I’m not going to lie or anything. It’s not something for you (the player) to take personally, regardless of what the case may be.
The person will understand where I’m coming from and then look into himself and work to see how his situation can be bettered.” Simple but effective.
