Since the beginning of 2008, Chris Gayle has a Test average of 51.28, with eight centuries in 30 matches © WICB Media Photo/Randy Brooks
If all goes well over the next couple of days in the world of Chris Gayle, on Sunday he will become the ninth West Indian player to reach the 100-Test milestone, when they begin their three-Test series against New Zealand in Jamaica. Gayle hasn't always been around to play Test cricket for West Indies, especially over the last few years, when friction with the home board has coincided with greater T20 opportunities elsewhere and resulted in changed priorities. A batting style based around big hitting suits the shortest format too, but as a Test average of 42 testifies he is hardly a one-dimensional player. In fact, in Tests Gayle has a penchant for batting long periods and scoring big hundreds: he has seven scores of 150 or more, including two triple-hundreds; among West Indians, only Brian Lara and Garry Sobers have more 150-plus scores.
Despite all those stats and numbers, though, Test cricket isn't the first thing that comes to mind when talking about Gayle. His exploits in 20-over cricket is obviously a reason for that, but the other important reason for this is the number of Tests he has missed, especially over the last seven years. Since the beginning of 2008, Gayle has missed 24 out of the 54 Tests West Indies have played; over his entire career, he hasn't played 42 Tests since making his debut (though ten of those were immediately after he made his debut in 2000, when he didn't make the tour to Australia, and played only one out of five Tests in England). That's also the reason why it's taken him more than 14 years to play 100 Tests. Meanwhile, he has already played 173 T20 matches, for 12 different teams; since the beginning of 2008, he has played 163 T20 matches, but only 30 Tests.
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