When he was coach of the West Indies, Ottis Gibson once told me I needed to get my eyesight checked. I had dropped a couple of catches, and Ottis Gibson decided I could no longer see the ball. I was seeing it flying off my bat and out of stadiums, but I believe in respect, so I didn’t even argue with it. ‘Okay, why not?’
So I went. Everything was perfect. My eyes could have been nominated for awards. The optician was beautiful too, so it was worth going for more than one reason. Amazing eyes of her own, and when opticians check your eyes they really look into yours. She was married, we’re professionals, we behaved with professional respect. All that matters is that I can not only see the ball but I can make out the individual stitches as it comes in to me at 90 miles an hour and connects with my bat to go back the other way even faster.
I can see this ball going over deep midwicket, and I can see this one disappearing into that river. And I can see the fine detail on that scoreboard over there, which will be showing something special in the very next Test match I play.
My innings begins the night before. Alone in the team hotel on the south-west coast of Sri Lanka, lying on my bed, just lying there thinking about it, eyes open.
I analyse my game. I see myself doing well out there in the middle. I see each particular bowler and I see how I will play accordingly.
I visualize a particular bowler bowling a particular ball. If you know the team and you know the bowler and you know their action, you picture that action. You see the ball in their fingers and how their body shape or angle changes ever so slightly with each different delivery. I imagine the backdrop, the particular stands and sightscreen, just to get that feel before the first blow of battle is struck.
Wherever you are, whatever format, you think about the mix: four or five bowlers, their attributes, how the captain might use those against you, what damage you can lay upon them. You put those things in your mind as early as possible so you can sleep on it and cement ideas into actions. When you wake up, you refresh your mind and go back to the big thoughts. And when you go out there your mind will click back to those images and thoughts, and you will be ready.
The first Test, Galle. The first Test since I have lost the captaincy, the first Test with Darren Sammy in charge. A lot of white noise and turmoil around us, a lot of fire blown at me. Does Gayle care? Is Gayle committed? Does he support the captain?
Understand the pressures rather than letting them dictate. Make space to deal with them.
I pack my bags the night before. Sleep is more important to me than breakfast, so I shower to wash away the doubts and walk straight to the team bus. Music on my headphones to wake me and establish the rhythm of the day. You must be mentally ready before you hit the bus, because you are the opening batsman, and even if our team plan is to bowl, the coin can land either way and you can be at the crease less than half an hour later. And half an hour is not enough, never enough.
On this morning in the building heat and tension nobody really talks. I push the white noise and fire away. I prepare for what Sri Lanka will bring.
There was a time when I would make sure that every day before a Test I’d be in the nets, and always batting, always batting, against a new ball as much as possible because I’m an opening batsman. I would enjoy getting a feel of the bowlers and the ground around.
Not so much now, for sometimes the nets become a cage. I want to see the ball flying, but I am trapped. I feel as if I am suffocating.
We never had nets on our nets as kids at Lucas. Just the concrete strip, the trees on the boundary through mid-on and midwicket for the left-hander like me, the sandy outfield on the offside, the lignum tree deep at third man, the fence of the little school stretching round from deep midwicket to long leg. Surround me in netting and I can’t play the Chris Gayle way. I can try to be defensive, work on my technique, feel my balance, but I need to escape.
I will move into a more open net, one not enclosed on both sides by other nets, and now I can hit balls, but it is never enough. So I will move on again, this time to the middle, to the middle of the open spaces, and get the throw-downs and start hitting with freedom, and see the ball flying.
That’s my preparation. Have the bowlers bowl at you to get a feel, not looking to attack, just feel the ball on the bat. Get the hands and the eyes tuned, get your legs moving. Be explosive in another net. And then set yourself free.
Sometimes you’ll challenge yourself. Take on the bowlers. Take on the bowlers and put them under the pump. There are players who bat in the net and treat it like a series of unrelated deliveries. Every ball a different bowler. I get one man to run in for a full over, and I give myself scenarios. Four balls to get 15 runs. Give me a target and I am alive.
Freed from the trap, I do range work. A team-mate throwing the ball down, me punching the ball into the stands. Hitting sixes, hitting them in different ways – low and skimming, high and mighty, into the first tier, up into the middle, onto the roof in a mighty arc. See the ball flying, flying. Watching it go away and feeling the confidence flowing.
Sometimes you’ll tell the thrower exactly where you want the ball to land. Throw it full for a couple of minutes, I want to send it straight down the ground. Drop it short and spicy for six balls, I want to pull. Onto my legs, I’m swinging these away into those executive boxes beyond deep square leg. To see the ball sailing away is a sweet feeling and a warm one.
Confidence come from hard work. Confidence enable you to flourish.
Each ground brings its own special squeeze. At Galle, the ruins of the old fort past long-on, the sea beyond, the humidity intense, you know the ball will bite and turn.
Each man finds his own way to prime for the battle. England’s Ian Bell carries in his kit bag one bat that’s three-quarters as wide as a normal one, and another that’s only as wide as a ball. He uses it to fine-tune the eyes for the one that turns late or sizzles off the subcontinental soil.
Me? I just want a big heavy bat. Just give me my weapon and make sure it has some weight and some meat and I’m good. Gimme my bat an’ let’s go an’ war.
I have struggled in Sri Lanka before. I’ve yet to score good runs in a Test series here. There are reasons this morning to be full of doubt and what chance do I have.
So as well as readying the body for battle you must ready the mind. Do not think of the noise from your edge as it carries through to the keeper. Do not focus on the past failures. You’ve got to see yourself facing the first ball, and you’ve got to see yourself hitting those sixes. All those years ago at Lucas, Spike Rhoden used to say it: see yourself score a hundred before it actually happen.
You have to dig deep within yourself, truly, to master it. If you can master it on your own, without using a sports psychologist, then even better. Not always will there be help around you. The man who solves his own problems can solve more when they arrive.
Confidence enable you to relax.
I don’t worry if the throw-downs don’t feel right. Why should they? They’re only throw-downs. Where’s the stress? I don’t do anything superstitious. I come back into the dressing-room after the warm-up, half an hour to play, and just relax. Let the unconscious mind go to work.
The coin can land either way, but this time it lands right. I have toiled in the field in this ground before, seen three new balls come and go. It’s a ground whose history is built from runs. Darren Sammy says we will bat. There is no other way.
You are never alone. My opening partner today is Adrian Barath, just 20 years old, in his first full season of Test cricket. Communication is key, so you wish each other luck. Because he is young, like so many of the openers who have been thrown in alongside me, I’m the one doing the talking. I say, don’t be shy. If you want help with anything, come and tell me. Relax. Feel at home.
There are always nerves. I have been playing Test cricket for more than a decade at this point, but when you are sitting here waiting to go out, nobody wants to get in your way. You can feel your body getting ready for battle – the pulse in your ear, the sweat on your palms, the blinks in your eyes.
The bell sounds. Bat in hand, through the corridors, studs a-clatter. Onto the rolled grass and silence. You step across that white rope and it kicks in: all this is natural, and you do not fear it.
It is a beautiful ground. The red brickwork of the fort’s tall tower. The blue sea and boats beyond. Grassy banks around the boundary, a pair of steep three-tiered stands. In your ears the honking of smoky old buses on the busy roads behind the pavilion.
I am aware of nothing – not the crowd, not the sunshine, not the waiting opposition. If someone was calling me I wouldn’t answer. I’m thinking about the middle. I’m not looking left and right.
To the wicket. Always the same thing when I get there. Have a look at the track. Walk back to the crease. It gives me the background settings. It establishes the scene. It’s like my mind is a camera, scanning what doesn’t matter, then zooming in to focus on the spot where the ball will come from, locking the range, locking the range.
When I was starting out, I would feel the nerves again now. You’re inexperienced. You’re intimidated by some fast bowlers.
Now I have seen it, and I have survived it. This is my place.
The first ball is the most focused you will be in your life. The first ball is the most important one. When that first ball is coming, your mind is completely clear.
Nothing but you and the bowler. I slow my breathing down. I keep my head really still. Hands soft and relaxed.
People ask if you play that ball on instinct or conscious thought. It is both and neither. It is a natural thing.
It is about balance. You have to give yourself the chance to go forward, and you have to give yourself the chance to come back. Try not to get caught in two minds, even if it happens to all of us. And lean on the calculations you made on the hotel bed the night before: what has this bowler’s first ball done before? If he’s going to pitch it here, how am I going to play it? If it’s coming at me from that angle, where is my weight?
Coaches talk about watching the ball onto the bat. It’s a myth. You can’t, not off a quick bowler. It’s impossible. It’s just a phrase. You just have to pick up the line as early as possible. And be in a good position, a comfortable position, where you can play that particular ball.
Ninety overs in a Test match day, 540 balls in all. You can tell after one delivery if the magic is there. The bowlers can know too. They experiment and assess in those first exchanges – how much bounce is there? Is there movement? Is it swinging?
When you’re in form, you can sometime think that you could bat blindfolded. And that’s a beautiful feeling. Sometime you go out and everything just click from ball one. Slow-motion cricket, for you if not the chasing fielders.
And sometimes nothing. You can understand why players are superstitious, because you want to control that feeling. You want to control the magic. When it’s not there panic grabs at your guts. When it’s not there everything feels fast. The ball is upon you before you can move.
Dhammika Prasad, coming in from the City End, right arm over, angling them across me. Pitched up just short of a length, I play and miss. Howls and growls from all around, pulse drumming harder in my ear.
Sometimes your feet might not be moving, and you get caught at the crease or you nick off. You try so many things, but sometimes the magic is not there. That does not mean that it will not return.
Viv Richards saw himself as a boxer, ducking some blows, riding others. I am a surfer, riding the wave. I tell myself to ride out the session. Survive this, and you will be good. Tests gonna test you. You might score 15 runs in a session. Fine. As an opener you have to ride the wave and hang on.
And it won’t last for ever. Even if Prasad and Thilan Thushara are bowling a good length, you know they must get one wrong. One will definitely come in your slot. When it does, you have already thought about how you will play it.
You have to relish those calculations. It’s like playing chess. Who’s the smartest? Can you out-think that great bowler?
Use every skill in your mind. In Test cricket you slow it down. You’ve got to give yourself a chance. Be patient. Play the delivery on you now, rather than the one that beat you before.
Ajantha Mendis has come into this match with a reputation to wreck weaker minds. He has taken eight wickets in his first Test and 26 in his first series. He flicks leg breaks with his fingers, and he not only has the varieties that you know about – top-spinners, googlies, sliders and biters – but mystery ones that no batsman in the world has been able to read. There is sometime one called the carrom ball, where he bends his middle finger and snaps the ball out between knuckle and thumb. Even if you spot that one it does you little good – he can make it turn to leg, turn to off or make it go straight on. Who is wearing the blindfold now?
I have planned for it. I have studied his moods and character. What is he likely to try next? What do I want to make him do next? How can I launch into him, how can I weaken him?
I have started slowly. I am watching the wicket and what these bowlers can do on it. I can also feel the fast outfield, so I start to pick it up, pick off a few gaps, see the ball race to the boundary. From that first boundary more confidence flows. The relaxation kicks in. Now I’m in the groove. Now we can start to hit back.
Or maybe they want to hit some more. Kumar Sangakkara is an outstanding captain. He makes his own studies, and when my partner, Barath, goes to Suraj Randiv’s off spin, he goes for turn from both ends and tries to tighten the vice.
A man in short on the leg side, a man under nose. First slip and keeper cackling and cajoling. In your ears, constant yap yap yap.
You cannot let them get to you, because if you let them get to you, you’re in big trouble.
It’s not like you’re not hearing them. You’re hearing them. You can’t block them out when they’re right under your nose. You can’t pretend you can’t hear them.
Instead, let the ball fill your mind. Let it push everything else back and away. Just you and the ball. Nothing else around you. The man at short leg? Waste of time. The chat coming up from the slips? Waste of time. Most batsmen who see fielders around them want to get rid of them, to force them back. They’ll go attacking and they’ll get out. You just play the ball and play it well.
Use your skills. A cricket ground is a large place. There will be gaps, more so with so many men in short. Push for a one. Get off strike. Get down the other end and get a little breather, so they can’t bowl too many deliveries to you in a row. Rotate it round. Break the stranglehold. Give them the problem of you being a problem.
Mendis with his snap-fingered carrom. The ball skidding into my front pad. Huge appeal, screams from all around.
The pulse in the ears. The umpire shakes his head. Sangakkara refers it upstairs. The pulse beats. The decision comes back down – bat in that one too, just as I knew, just as I feared they didn’t.
Getting out always hurts. Getting out when you are set makes you want to kick yourself up the ass, because you messed it up.
You talk to yourself as you walk off, curse yourself. If you’re playing at home the crowd will do it too. You can hear it coming in – ‘You can’t bat,’ and that’s Jamaican style, big drawl on it, ‘YUH CYAAN BAT!’ ‘You can’t do shit . . . YUH CYAAN DO SHIT!’
You feel paranoid going back into the dressing-room. What have I done? What will they say?
You have to learn to deal with it. You have to have room for disappointment, because in every man’s life it will come. Don’t hit the dressing-room this way and that. Put down your stuff easily and calmly, even though you’re upset. Give yourself a few minutes to catch back your breath, have a sit and hold your head down. Don’t try to pick yourself back up for a couple of minutes.
It’s not like you’re not hurting. You’re feeling bad inside. But you are a batsman, and every batsman must deal with it. I never let that anger out, not in a burst. That’s the way I have set myself. I say, this is me. Disappointment must come, but nothing will last for ever.
Every day the tide turns. So it is on the rocks beyond the Galle fort, so it is in the middle.
I start to attack the spinners. Down the track to Randiv’s off breaks, clouting him over the sightscreen and into one of those honking buses touting for passengers heading north to Colombo. Another dent in the side to add to its collection.
You want to score at a rate where you are dictating the game, not them. So down the track to the next delivery, on 96, and although it’s high this time rather than as long, and the fielder is dashing round to catch it, the willow and the sea breeze give it enough to drop the ball over the ropes and the fielder into the advertising boards.
My 100 up, in a country where I failed to get past 50 in the preceding Test series. I take off my helmet, white bandana beneath, and lie back on the warm soil with a big smile on my face.
You never take a century for granted. No one remembers you scoring 99? That’s not quite true. But a half-century, you don’t even want to raise your bat. Triple figures is the only way. That’s how you stamp your mark.
People ask if the feeling is better than sex. You get different sorts of sex, so . . . But when you get past that milestone, counting becomes easier. The runs tick over without you thinking about it.
No number is enough. You can’t get to 100 and be satisfy. You need to be greedy. A big appetite is a good thing to have. Eventually you’re going to get out, and you’re going to regret it. ‘Oh, if I could have stayed out there and scored another forty runs . . .’
So get to 150. Go for 200. There will be more dry days than wet days, and you have to bat for those days too. Put the cash in the bank. Go longer.
I always understood this. Just bat, and bat, and bat. At Galle as it was at Lucas. Make it big.
I had a slow start to my Test career. After four games I was averaging 13. Some of the older guys in the dressing-room said to me, ‘Get one big innings and your average will look just fine.’ And they were right, because my first century was a big one, 175. And that’s something that has played in the back of my mind ever since.
Onwards. Never get carried away. You’ve got to talk to yourself. You’ve got to calm yourself down, for when things are flowing easily, when you’ve scored an easy little burst of 20 in two overs, that’s when you’re in trouble and the chance will come. Don’t get ahead of the wave; the guy who rides the wave out will be batting for the entire day.
I tell myself that I’m playing catch-up for what I’ve missed out on in Sri Lanka. This has got to be a big one. Not thinking about a triple century, but batting right throughout the entire day.
On that previous tour, Chaminda Vaas got me five times out of six innings in Sri Lanka. My worst series ever in cricket. I’d just scored my first Test century, so I went there lazy. I didn’t think it would be that tough. And then you’re in the field for three new balls, and then you have to bat for four overs, just to survive the night. Vaas isn’t that fast, the ball isn’t coming on, you’re pushing at the ball too early, you’re nicking off.
I’m not his bunny. Mike Atherton was dismissed by Glenn McGrath 19 times in 17 matches. He was dismissed by Courtney Walsh 17 times and Curtly Ambrose the same again. That might seem full of shame, but he’s the opening batsman, and they’re the opening bowlers. He faced more deliveries from them than anyone else, with a new ball, when the pressure was on and the field up. That’s why I take my hat off to any Test opening batsmen who averages over 40. There are no nightwatchmen for opening batsmen. Numbers three and four get one, but not us. Are they saying his wicket is more valuable than mine? I still don’t get it.
It was good for me to learn the hard way, early. So now when Mendis is coming in, feeling like a world-beater, on a pitch that takes turn and with a crowd and captain at his back, I am as unyielding as the walls of the fort and as relentless as the waves beyond.
I have already made the plans. I have already worked out when to attack him and when to let him go. When he’s the man doing the damage to my team-mates, see him off until the bowling change, and then get going again. Play the long game. For all that you want to dominate, he can also be on top. He can also be on good form. So you have to respect that, and you have to let it go. Let that one particular bowler go and make the rest history.
There are other ways I will take Mendis on. I will show him no fear, only my gladiator’s mask. Spin brings its crafty trials, but even when a fast bowler hits me, I do not show any pain. I wear it and bear it.
I can get inside his head. I can think like a bowler, because I am a bowler.
If you’re skilled at it, you can predict which delivery is coming. You hit a ball for four, you think, where is he going to come now? If I were bowling to me, what would I do?
You don’t premeditate, but you influence the odds, because most times you’re not going to get the same delivery again, not after finding the boundary with the last one. So you have already narrowed the range of options. For one particular bowler you might have five possible shots; that’s now down to four. The sums are turning your way.
I never make notes. It’s all stored in my mind. I can access that instantly in that middle, when paper would be blowing round the dressing-room or a laptop plugged in charging. And you have to think quickly, and once you think about it, you have to be in the right position to play all four of those shots.
I have accepted that Mendis will test me. I have accepted that he will create chances. If I have an escape, if someone drops a sharp catch or fumbles a run-out, I will forget it ever happened. You can’t take a mistake back. Some batsmen may beat themselves up about it, get angry. But it’s happened. Okay. They’ve given me a chance. So it’s my day today. Let’s make the most of it.
Randiv comes back on. Get inside his head. Give him the problem of me being a problem.
One reverse sweep, chopped away fine past a startled Jayawardene at slip. Next ball, because he won’t expect it, another reverse sweep, this time harder and squarer.
Now is the time, now you’re on top, to mess with the bowler. I will read his body language, how he corresponds with his captain. Because I am the batsman this gives me power.
I’m searching for weakness. Darting eyes. The bowler shaking his head. They can be bluffing, but you learn. You come to understand a particular bowler’s normal mood and movements, and so then when they are under stress. Because bowlers be scared too. About being hit. About losing control. I’ve been batting before when a captain has asked a bowler to come on, and he’s refused. He doesn’t want to face me.
Past my 150, six sixes and 20 fours.
You can tell when you’re in charge; it’s like you’re in demand. The match has started revolving around you, no longer a bit part but the key role.
You can see it in the faces, on the wicketkeeper when you glance behind you, in the body language of the bloke who was fielding at short leg as he trudges back out to deep midwicket instead. They know they’re in for a long day. They can only hope for the best. And when you’re in control, it’s a sweet deep feeling. We know how quickly a match can change, so when it’s happening for you, you have to cash in.
175. Darren Bravo dropping anchor at the other end. Our total has gone past 300 and records are there, but more important is how I’m feeling. Is the magic there? Then the stats take care of themselves.
Sangakkara senses the battle is slipping away. A wise general, he opens a new front: mid-on and mid-off three quarters of the way back, the spinner tossing it up to tempt me, then firing one in quicker for the sucker-punch. Come into my web, said the spider to the superfly.
It’s bait, but it doesn’t have to be dangerous bait. I’m an aggressive batter, so I still back myself to clear those men. If you’re looking to runs, and you know that’s your strength, you play according to it. And you’ll get them. Most times.
Heat burning me up now, sweat prickling and tickling. The humidity in Sri Lanka a rough killer.
To concentrate all day on anything is hard. Try sitting on a sofa reading a book, and an hour in you’ll be thinking about lunch. I have been batting for two and a half sessions, seen 400 balls bowled.
I am a decade into my Test career, and I understand how you handle it: you break Test cricket up. In the first session of each day you get 14 overs in the first hour, then a drinks break where you can consolidate, and then 14 again. After the lunch break you have the most important session. Get through that first hour and you are in demand. You can ride it. The last session is when the most runs come. Shine off the ball, wicket flatten out, bowlers tire.
That’s where we are now. Even in this moment, closing in on the double century, you can’t focus on every delivery. It’s like flicking a switch on and off. And then when Sangakkara turns again to his key man, Mendis, you turn up the focus. Supercharge the head.
You work together with your partner. Darren Bravo makes only 58 off 159 balls, but together we put on 196. If you’re doing well you don’t say so much, because you don’t want to overcomplicate things. In the tough moments and overs you get involved. When it’s not going your way, you need all the help you can get.
To 200. Ovations all around, but I am being greedy. Get through till the close. Get through this second new ball.
It’s easy to start daydreaming. When I’m fielding at slip my mind will wander off and go somewhere. It happens to me when I’m having a long conversation. I’ll be talking to someone and then it goes somewhere else. I don’t know why that happens.
I don’t get it when I’m batting. At the non-striker’s end I’m often thinking about something else. But as soon as I’m at the business end I’m switching back on.
It’s challenging, batting long. You need a lot of fluid. No batter will eat. They can’t eat. You get cramps, you feel sluggish.
The sun sinks below the battlements of the fort. I think back down the years to South Africa in Antigua and the 317.
Once you experience something, you know you have the ability within yourself to do it again. Once you achieve something, you want to surpass it.
As the day ends with me on 217, I know that a second triple century is a possibility. I know too what a huge thing it would be. So many great players don’t have one. You look at the legend Sachin, the man who has more Test centuries than anyone else, and he will never score a Test triple.
Never get carried away.
To the first ball of the second day, Mendis refreshed and raring, there is a screaming lbw appeal.
The umpire stays motionless. They refer it again.
Not out.
A new day, a new front. Now Sangakkara goes for death by boredom, and instructs Thushara to bowl all six balls of his over well outside off stump.
As West Indian batsmen we’re not raised to be patient. We are attacking players; we want to feel the ball onto the bat. So sometimes we’ll chase a wide one, just to try to score. Many times it is our downfall. I have a reputation for hanging my bat out there. It has sometimes cost me dear.
I leave all six.
I have learned patience. I know that Sangakkara can’t stick with that tactic for long, because it will kill the game just bowling wide wide wide. I know I can be smarter.
No coach can convince you. It has to come from within, for if you’re getting out like that you’re going to lose your place in the team. Find other ways to score or else you’ll find ways out of the team. What does it take to survive? Figure it out and do it.
Give it time. Never panic. When you panic, you give away your wicket. Wait for it to come round to you.
Work your odds. Bear in mind you’re batting with someone else, Shiv Chanderpaul now with me in the middle. Give him a chance to move the board.
Even on 220, you can find yourself becalmed. The pitch has changed, the humidity is making the ball reverse swing. Your hands are slipping inside your wet gloves.
You’re just not hitting it, not hitting it at all. You can be thinking that the magic has left you, that it’s betrayed you. And then – crash – with one stroke it’s back in your eyes and arms. You have to believe it’s going to come back. Don’t lose hope. Stay strong. As long as you’re still around you have a chance to score runs.
250, lunch approaching on day two. I feel like I have been at the crease for ever. I feel part of the Galle turf. I feel as ancient as the fort.
Now is as dangerous as the first over with the new ball. Now is Sangakkara’s next gambit: death by flattery.
You like that shot, yeah? Well, let me feed it. Let me bowl into exactly the slot you like, except I will also pack that scoring area with my best catchers. You relax, Chris Gayle. You play your natural game. Don’t worry about us until the flattery goes to your head and you get just a fraction loose and we gobble you up and you’re gone.
For some batsmen it’s the short ball, sitting up and asking for it, with one man at deep midwicket, one at fine leg and one at long leg. Some batsmen are compulsive. Cyaan resist. Others are egotists, and won’t admit they could fail.
The smart batsman plays not into the plans but calculates how he can counter them. He makes sacrifices – I’ll ignore that one – and he soaks it up, maybe wearing a short one on the lid. He plays to his strengths; if he’s not accustomed to ducking short stuff, don’t suddenly start ducking. Do what works for you, not what might suit them.
For me it’s the drive. Sangakkara puts himself in at short extra cover and another man in close to his right and gets Prasad and Thushara to pitch it up, full and juicy and winking at me. Have a drive, Christopher Henry Gayle. Everyone loves your cover drive. Here’s another. Beautiful. You relax. And here comes the slower one, and here comes the same shot, and here comes the ball, straight down my open throat . . .
Stay strong. 280 now, Chanderpaul gone, Brendan Nash in his place.
Stay simple. Don’t worry about technique, about what might look nice in a freeze-frame. Just focus on balance. It’s all about balance.
Coaches will try to get the same effect through more complicated methods – trigger points, back-lifts, knee bends. Strip it back instead.
There is a guy called Richard Austin, long-time Jamaican cricketer, super-talented all-rounder. In later years he got lost in the struggle, falling apart after going on the rebel tour of apartheid-era South Africa, falling into drugs and homelessness. Even in the confusion he would still come up with clarity: ‘Chris, yuh don’ move until di bowler release di ball.’
Be still, and control your breathing. Lessons from the streets of east Kingston: when a bowler come for you, sometime it’s like shooting a gun. You have to control your breathing.
Over the long years and long innings I have trained my mind for these moments. I know not to exaggerate things – dis is a bad track, dis ting impossible. I know to always stay comfortable in myself; you have enough men there trying to wreck you without your own thoughts trying to tangle your feet too. Be confident within yourself, whatever you’re trying to do. Always. Don’t hold it back. You can get it. Just know you can do it.
And take a little luck when it comes your way. A few runs later, Prasad digs one in rather than pitching it up for the drive. Surprised, I get cramped up and jam the ball off the splice, up high, down to Sangakkara at that short extra cover. He doesn’t even have to move. Prasad collapses on his back, his team-mates jog over wearily and slap his heaving chest.
And then Brendan Nash, sharp-eyed Brendan Nash, puts his hand up to me and puts his little magic in the umpire’s ear.
‘You might just want to have a look at where that front foot landed . . .’
Upstairs to the third umpire and his replays. Slowing down Prasad’s delivery stride. Watching the front foot. Watching it land fractionally over the popping crease.
Nash, you can drink for free at Triple Century whenever you want. Chris, you got a life there. Make the best of it.
And so, on 297, I see Randiv toss one up. I step out, lean my heavy bat and slap it away between those two men short in the covers, and I see the ball racing away, and I see no fielder anywhere near it and none to chase.
I kneel down on the pitch, helmet in one hand, bat in the other. I look up at the sky and I say, ‘Thank you, God.’
Joy, and happiness, and relief.
I had no idea that only three other men in history had ever scored two Test triple centuries. Don Bradman, Brian Lara, Virender Sehwag. Not a bad little posse to join. Not bad company for the kid from St James Road, Rollington Town.
Cramp biting now. My hamstring seizing and stopping. Darren Bravo back out to act as my runner.
Time to swing it some more. At some stage we have to declare in order to win the game. Your bat feel like five bats. Swinging and ducking and running for a day and a half in that heat – if you find yourself at that stage, my advice is to swap your bat for a lighter one once you past 275.
I accelerate past the 317 of Antigua. Good. Now where next will this lead? I’m targeting 350, but time is running out. Energy is running out. Body is not running at all.
On 333, Mendis has his victory at last. A flicked carrom ball that lands and fizzes through the gap between my front pad and bat.
Sangakkara and Jayawardene the first to shake hands, the rest of their team-mates following. They’ve kept me in the baked field for so long in the past, they can swallow this little slice of revenge.
I get asked which triple century I like most. It’s like choosing between two girls who you have loved at different times of your life. They’re just different.
Then again, maybe this second one is sweeter. Away from home, in a country where we’ve always struggled. They have just taken away the captaincy of the country from me. And I have just shown them: lissen man, I still can play, with captain or without captain.
The pair of them bring more respect, for sure. But when you get number two, the expectation is higher. They want number three. When I get the first one they didn’t say get another one. But two? All of a sudden they’re looking on. Oh, you’re going to be the first to get three. All I hear is three three three.
What I don’t hear again, from anybody, is that my eyesight might be going. Which in one way is a shame, for that optician was a very, very nice lady.