Internet Desk: It will be quite a fascinating battle on Thursday when two RCB teammates will try to outscore each other. Both Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli have shown in this tournament why they are rated the best in the business. Gayle, who was rested for West Indies match against Afghanistan will look to blast his way against the Indians in the second semi final of ICC World T20. The Jamaican was in a pretty relaxed mood at the team’s practice session today at the Cricket Club of India. He is also feeling the excitement ahead of the semi final against India. Here are the excerpts from Gayle’s session with the media .
On his RCB team mate Virat Kohli in sublime form : Yeah, I am hoping. ‘Please don’t fire, Virat’. He is in good form and it is a good wicket as well so anything is possible. We have to play the situation accordingly, play within our strength and actually take it from there. We are not going to focus on only Virat, there are so many match-winners there and anyone of them can actually fire on any particular day. It is a huge team India, their batting line-up is superb, but Virat is the man that stands out at this point in time. Like I said they have so many match-winners, like our team as well, we have a lot of match-winners too, it is not always going to be about me. For a particular stage, one of our batters should take up the baton if Chris Gayle doesn’t score runs, someone should actually take it up and fire as well and put the team in a winning position.
On Virak Kohli being the world beater : No surprise there. I have said it over the years he is going to be the world beater he is today. Hopefully tomorrow he won’t get any runs. He has been fantastic right through the year. He has been in a great form. He can still get runs but in a losing cause. We’ll be happy with that as well.
On the loss against Afghanistan : The only positive you can look from the Afghanistan game is the motive. No teams can actually win all games, to actually lose at that particular stage, we didn’t want to, we wanted to keep our winning consistency going. But these things happen, it is T20 cricket and on any particular day, any particular team can beat any team. We are disappointed with the loss but we have to get the bad game out of the way. Like I said, two games away and then we actually lift the trophy. We saw India bounce back from losing games as well, so it can put us in a strong position as well to actually lift our game and do better on Thursday.
On what made West Indies click in the Group Stages : We have lost a lot of key players, but if you look at the back-up, the guys who came in for the key players, they have actually played a tremendous part as well. So that goes to show the strength of West Indies cricket back home. The guys who actually replaced the first picks, someone like Carlos Brathwaite, he won us the game against South Africa. So those guys are playing a big part and the bench is still strong enough. We have a lot of match-winners, the No. 1 bowler Badree, who is doing a fantastic job and Suleiman Benn backed up Dwayne Bravo, Russell and the rest of the bowlers. So it is a fantastic all-round team and we are going against a strong favourite team India, so it will be an interesting game and I hope it will be a good team for the fans to cheer and the West Indies come out on top.
On his century against England in Mumbai : It is good always to get runs, especially in the first game you want to have that sort of confidence where you don’t have play catch up cricket. For the tournament so far, I have only batted twice so I haven’t really got a knock in all four games. But this is a perfect opportunity to actually start the tournament and try and pick up where I left off, get a big one for the team and put them in a winning position. Like I said if that doesn’t happen someone should actually be able to pick it up and take West Indies to victory.
On how important was the century in Mumbai : It is good to always get runs especially in the first game you want to actually sort of confident don’t want to play catch-up cricket. For the tournament so far I have only batted twice so I haven’t really got a full knock in all four games. But this is a perfect opportunity again to actually where I actually started the tournament to try and pick up where I left off and get another big one for the team, pout them in a winning position as well. If that doesn’t happen someone should be able to actually do that and pick it up and get West Indies into the final.
On confronting Ashwin and the Australians attacking him from word go : It is no surprise. That always happens. Dhoni always put Ashwin up early but Dhoni is an unpredictable captain. It doesn’t necessary that he’ll do it but these things do happen. Like I said I am looking at what, to show what Chris Gayle…. I will be prepared, I’ll be ready mentally for whichever particular bowler he has to focus on if it is Ashwin. There are so many bowlers there – Nehra is bowling well. He is very good with the new ball. We just have to keep our eyes open, play according to the situation. Chris Gayle will always be positive. It doesn’t matter which bowler is bowling against Chris Gayle. Chris Gayle looking to attack. That’s the nature of T20 cricket. And that’s the nature of Chris Gayle. No names, just cricket ball, …, beat it as hard as possible.
On India’s comeback in the tournament after losing the first match : They have made some momentum. There’s no doubt about it the have the momentum and al ot of confidence coming into this game as well. It is very difficult to pinpoint one particular player when everybody in the Indian team. It is a very good allround team, good fielding team as well. That’s why India is the favourite. It is always going to be difficult to beat them here, but like I said West Indies the upset is ready.