I travel the world, but I always come home. I represent teams around the globe, but my true calling is always the West Indies, and when my heart calls, it brings me back to Jamaican sounds and shores.
They were all there for my first Test landmark at Sabina Park, where we watched as kids and learned from the skills of Delroy Morgan and Courtney Walsh and Patrick Patterson and the rest. They were all there, on the Red Stripe Mound – Popeye, Kevin Murray, John Murphy, big brother Andrew, bigger wilder brother Michael Crew.
The pact was struck among them. When I reached my half-century, they would all jump the barriers and run to the middle to celebrate with me. We got here together, we would party together. I say we – I had no idea what they had planned, and neither did Popeye, for when the shot came and the scoreboard ticked over and he hurdled the fence and sprinted for distant stumps, he first wondered why it was so quiet and then wondered where the speed had come from to leave the rest of the gang in his dust, and when he looked back over his shoulder he saw only empty outfield and a line-up of laughing faces still safely on the mound, and when he looked to his left he saw one security guard closing fast and to his right another thundering in faster.
Respect to Popeye. When you commit, you commit. ‘I cyaan turn back now,’ and on he came. Into my arms for a hug and a whoop, a dip of the shoulder to fool one security guard and a final burst of unexpected pace to skin the second and blow out the third who had come huff and puff in their wake.
You rule that in another part of the world as hooligan behaviour. You rule it as unseemly and childish and never come back. In Jamaica it’s passion. It’s loyalty. It’s being who you are, and not pretending for anyone else.
I love being part of it. Being born and raise Jamaican is the single best thing that has happened to me. For all the struggles, for all the pain, I wouldn’t trade it to be a free and sheltered citizen of anywhere else.
It’s a tough system to come through. Never is it easy. But this is where you make your name – before all these franchises, before all the long-haul flights and sweet hotels, before the big deals and Kingfisher villas. Before World Boss, the Jamaican boy.
You start with your country, and you graduate to the West Indies, and it’s a great feeling for that Jamaican boy to hold. I love franchise cricket, and no man gives more to it, but it’s a different scenario and a different atmosphere. It’s more powerful for the West Indies, because the people are more passionate, and you’re playing for the whole region, and that’s a bigger burden on your shoulders. If you’re playing for a franchise and you don’t get the sort of runs people expect, it’s not too much a pressure. You can still feel comfortable and bounce back and get a big total another day, and everything will be okay. When the performance doesn’t come for the West Indies, the abuse will. When the falling performance fails to bounce as soon as ground hits, you can get cut from the team, and it’s a big struggle to come back, and a bigger one to win back your reputation.
I love the legacy before me, and I feel pride in what I have added. You come and you play your part. You reach close to some of the greats. Some people might even recognize you as one of them – one of the best big hitters, the best T20 player, one of the most dedicated. Yuh name gonna be call up dere, no doubt.
The Jamaican people are very passionate. Straightforward. When you do something good, they acknowledge it without reservation. No wait and see next time, no could-have-done-more. You get more love when you perform, and if you can get the job done in style you can get away with a few low scores and you won’t be pressured, for they know that when you get going it’s going to be big and it’s going to be entertaining.
Boots on the other feet. If you come with slackness, it won’t be tolerated. You’ll know if you’ve done something foolish. The crowd will straight let you know, no doubt about that.
An early first-class game for Jamaica at Sabina Park, and Michael Crew in the stands. I get out to a poor shot. Down comes the abuse, down from my own brother’s mouth. ‘Get off di wicket man, yuh no good!’
We have to play for the people, not just in the Caribbean but across the world.
Jamaicans? We are everywhere. Even in the smallest nation, we are there. When the West Indies win, our brothers and sisters can walk tall into their workplace. When Jamaica powers West Indian success, we are driving them on too.
You can say it’s only sport. What can sport do for a poor man in another man’s land? How can far-away sport feed a man or a few runs protect him from the pressure and sticks of the cruel cold world?
To ask this question is to not be Jamaican. To ask this question is never to have known that you yourself can be the answer.
Never is it easy. And that is why sport matters more, and that is why music matters just the same. That deep culture takes you away from the darkness, and brings you to the light.
We did crazy things as youngsters. We saw things that kids shouldn’t see. We lived through periods that no child should have to live through. To grow up in such a community is to understand why we take such joy in playing games.
The struggle coming up was what made you who you are. It taught me how to deal with every rough challenge that would come my way beyond. Hard-core hard times, back against a broken wall, yet with it a certain belief that you can turn it around.
You can be out there batting with the last man, still another 80 runs needed, and you still believe you can get the job done. You can be alone in a hospital room fitted to wires and pads and beeps, and you know you will pull through. Because you have been in the darkness, and you have found your way to the light.
Sport is the escape from a life that pushes you into sport. Inspiration and exodus through a single source.
Sport and music take Jamaica to the world. Calypso and Test cricket, dub-plates and one-day domination, dancehall and T20 beats. Bob Marley and Usain Bolt, Beenie Man and Chris Gayle.
Lightning Bolt and Six Machine.
Usain and me, we’re similar characters. We both love to entertain, we both love to have fun. We’re lay-back. But we also love our chosen sports, and we work hard, hard, hard. Most people don’t see behind the scenes. If he hiccup and lose a race, most people will say he partied too hard, just as if I don’t make any runs they say I’ve partied too much.
He came to my opening night at Triple Century, came to show his respect. We go to Kingston clubs together. We always have, even before he shook up the world at the Beijing Olympics, way back when, a Bolt then just a growing storm in the distant clouds. Me on the Hennessy, him on the Guinness, both of us on the dancefloor. He loved to dance. You’d see him in shirt wet and eyes wide. And you’d see that raw talent, that raw talent in everything he did. One World Boss can recognize another.
One World Boss can appreciate another. In Jamaica you grow up in sport and you grow up in track and field.
I don’t like to run but I love to watch it. Merlene Ottey, carrying the flag. Deon Hemmings, winning 400-metres hurdles gold at the ’96 Olympics, the first Jamaican woman to stand and boss the podium. Asafa Powell breaking world records, Veronica Campbell-Brown cruising over 200 metres, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce tearing up the 100 metres. Records and rivals blowing in their wake; when those Jamaicans represent, I feel good as a sportsman.
Usain changed athletics and he changed the world sporting arena. As Michael Jordan was before, so Usain is now. When he started handing out the licks – crazy times, beating records, untouchable at Olympics and Worlds – the impact was something huge on the country. Personal pride for every one of us.
In Jamaica you grow up in sport and you grow up in cricket. Usain always had that passion for the game. A fast bowler, of course, a big-swinging batsman who loved to charge bowlers. His brother played cricket for Melbourne, one of Lucas’s big cross-Kingston rivals; his training partner Yohan Blake bats punchy, with a bowling machine at home and a boast that he can out-pace it with ball in hand.
Two worlds come together. When Usain returns from the London Olympics with his titles retained, I have a little charity match going on up at the Kaiser Sports Ground in Discovery Bay, up on the north coast. He is coming off his sprinting high, I’m captaining one side, I ask him to captain the other.
He doesn’t hesitate. He also brings Yohan to open the bowling and his brother Sadiki to open the batting with him. No hiding in the middle order, and no waiting for the tailenders later on – I walk out for the first over, and Usain is pawing ground at the end of the longest run-up I’ve seen since Shoaib Akhtar.
There’s been a lot of chat off him in the pavilion. ‘I study these guys’ technique, I know how to out Chris, I know where to bowl him. It should be easy enough, I’m a very smart man . . .’
Coming in off that long run, like Mikey Holding, and it’s the fastest approach a cricket ground has ever witnessed. Although I recognize that long stride and smooth style I’ve never seen him bowl before, and honestly, I swear to God, the first ball he bowls is one of the best bouncers I’ve ever received. Proper bouncer – lines me up, follows me back, forces me to duck underneath it with a whoosh and a whoah. ‘Yow! This is serious!’
Then I think about it. ‘Lissen Chris, you don’ wan’ get out to Usain.’ And then after a while, ‘Come on Chris, this a charity game.’ So I start to play some shots off him. I pull him through midwicket for a six, hit a few fours through cover, hit a few through point. Then he bowls another short one, and I’m cutting again, and it shoots through a little, and I drag it on, and over go the timbers. ‘Oh shit . . .’
Usain celebrates like it’s the 100-metres final in London all over again. The big ‘To Di World’ move, leaning back and pointing that long left arm and long finger on his right hand, over to the slips for the hugs and high-five and then back to me, making to slice his throat, pointing me off to the pavilion with the big send-off.
He comes out to open the batting. Let’s calm this down. Let’s right the natural order. On I come with my off spin, and off goes my off spin, back over my head for six. My story is that I was trying to buy his wicket. But it’s his day, and the charity game becomes the Bolt show.
He puts it in his book – that Usain Bolt owes me a 100-metre race, to give me a chance to redeem myself for my beating. So one day I will take him up on a charity run. Get in shape and bring him down, get in shape and get back my title. Doesn’t matter that I like to watch others run rather than do it myself. Doesn’t matter that sprinting is for emergencies, not good times. He owes me. World Boss coming to bring World Boss down. Worlds gonna shake.
Usain feels the same critics’ fire as me. Too much mouth. Too much boasting. Too much flash, in those gold spikes, and too much mess around, in the clowning behind the blocks and when the stadium is supposed to fall silent.
You have to understand Jamaica to understand Jamaicans. We say what we think. We don’t hide it all bashful. We come from little so we like to live big.
We like to look good. When you have no money, you work with what you have. If it comes, you spend it while it lasts. It was absent before, so enjoy it before it goes absent again.
Fashion over style. Fashion over funds. Even if it’s only a T-shirt and jeans, it must look neat and match.
It starts from school. Boys walk around with a bar of soap, to make sure they can wash their face and look cool. You can’t even touch their uniform. They don’t want to sweat. They want to be tucked in properly and neat, with a comb in the back pocket and the hair just so.
Yuh don’t wan’ any dust brush on yuh shoes. If their shoes do get dirty, they will have an old toothbrush in another pocket and tap tap tap, they dust that dirt away.
Jamaicans will spend their last money on clothes, just to make sure they look fine, just to be looking fine for others to see. You see men on the street looking really bazzle, meaning really sharp – byazzle! – and not even a dollar in their pocket. And they’ll come over and ask me to buy them a drink, and they’ll be better dressed than me. That’s Jamaica. All the cash gone on clothes, hitting up the big star for funds to put a matching bottle alongside it. That’s Jamaican style. That’s our culture. We have to look good. We cyaan look pop-down! We cyaan look shabby.
The brand is the thing. And once there is a brand, a Jamaican is going to let you see the brand. Nothing is allowed to cover up the logo. No one is allowed to stand in the way. You will know what they’re wearing. If it’s Gucci, Prada, you know. If it’s Louis V, you’re seeing it.
Even if the brand is shoes and the logo is on the foot bottom they’re marching like a Russian solider so all can see. Marching round a crowded bar, swinging legs high, soles to your nose. All to show you it’s Louis V. Step. Louis V! Step. Louis V! That’s Jamaica. Boasie!
A lot of those brands will be fakes. Of course, because people can’t afford the real thing. You live in the UK, you go into a Louis Vuitton store, even a belt can be £1,000. So in Jamaica don’t expect the real deal on streets that are meaner.
It might look like it is, but that’s because they’re making it look good. When it is fake, when everyone knows it’s fake, no one will show it. You won’t be allowed close enough to see the knock-off. They’re bold with it. And you don’t challenge on it, because you came through the struggle and you lived the same. You give and take and understand.
‘Chris, yuh wearing Gucci – I’m wearing Gucci too!’
‘Yo Worl’ Baass, mi see yuh wearin’ Prada, mi be wearin’ Prada too!’
You see the knock-offs in the markets. You see the knock-offs everywhere. Everybody ’ustlin’. That’s customary. You have to know what you’re buying, or you will get your fingers burnt and the rings on them stolen away. There is scamming out there, and they’re good at it.Professional. Trust me.
In South Africa, for the under-19 World Cup. A guy came to the hotel selling nice jewellery, nice watches, at a very nice price. But we’re Jamaican. ‘Those ain’t real!’ He showed us the chains, which he said were gold and to be fair to the man looked like gold.
Now us Jamaicans have a tendency. We know how to check real gold. If you’re buying, we’ll say take a hair out of your head, lay it on the gold. If it sticks it’s real. And if you rub it on the ground without seeing too much change of colour or damage, it’s definitely real.
This man. This deal. We say nuh. This guy price cyaan be real.
‘Where you get these nice gold chains?’ He took us to the jeweller’s shop and showed us. The jeweller backed him. We did the hair trick. Sticky. We did the rub-the-ground trick. No damage.
I was convinced. We were all convinced. So I bought three of them and came back home with pockets full and wallet empty. I told a friend, and she was actually vexed with me. ‘Whaaat? You shoulda buy ten!’
Honestly, in the space of two days, those chains were looking as gold as my skin. I put one in a jar, kept the air out and checked it again in the morning. It was literally black. ‘Naaa, knock-aaf! Proper brassed yuh!’
My personal style you might have seen. You might have seen my look on Instagram. Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s only for me. But Jamaicans like to look different. We don’t like to see other people in the same clothes as us. At a party we want to stand out.
I don’t have disasters. I don’t have gambles that don’t look good. If you check my dressing, I feel whatever I pull on I can pull off. It’s the confidence I have in myself. You just give me whatever, I’ll make it look good.
I wear some serious colours to some beach parties sometimes. Some unbelievable cuts. But the world knows I’m a man who has the dressing thing covered. It doesn’t matter what I wear. I can wear slippers on a red carpet and look good. I got the swagger!
So I have spent money on some cheeky items. A black velvet jacket from Harrods. Some trainer boots with gold studs along the tongue and tops. The most I’ve ever spent was a couple of thousand euros on a pair of gold shoes in Munich. Not real gold – but they looked good and I knew no other man in Jamaica would be sporting them.
I wore them less than five times. Because once the thrill of spending money you never had on things you could never dream of wears off – and it takes some time, it takes some time – you realize that much as you want to escape from the past, you are also formed by it.
I have jackets in my closet. I have suits bought on a whim and a dream and a desire to be different not only from others but from how I was before. And they don’t get worn. They sit there untouch. Because most of the time I want a T-shirt and jeans, and that’s me. Or I want a vest and some shorts and that’s all of it. Just simple, just the way it was for so long. We move on but our baggage comes with us.
The hair? The hair must look bazzle too. The hair must look cool and extravagant, slick and sexy. Jamaican women go for extensions, because the stars like Rihanna and Beyoncé wear extensions, and because this is Jamaica, they take it further and bigger and louder. Shelly-Ann with her red or green from her own salon, girls on the street spending their last dollars on a little more. If you see hair that’s natural you may be looking in the mirror.
Us boys, we cut the look for the occasion. Most time we used to be on tour with the West Indies, Wavell and me would agree that we weren’t going to trim, we weren’t going to shave. We just wanted to have that rough tough look. The thinking was simple: you see the beards on TV, back home they’ll be saying, ‘Ya man, dem guys dem look mean! Like some animal!’
So now I wear my hair in braids, because I came back from one tour where I had let it grow, and I decided to twist it a bit, because I’d always wanted to try that look, and it worked for me in that moment. When it gets too regular, when it gets too popular a look, I’ll cut them off. It just depend when that mood come. Jus’ slice it like a bread.
All this I love about Jamaica. All this culture runs through who I am and what I have become, and all that I am and that is around me explains why winning for Jamaica feels like nothing else there is.
2013, and the first season of the Caribbean Premier League. The Jamaica Tallawahs into the final, up against the only team who had beaten us all season, the Guyana Amazon Warriors.
They had the best bowling attack – Lasith Malinga, Sunil Narine, Krishmar Santokie, the leading wicket-taker in the tournament. We had the best late arrival, Murali and me hatching and pulling off a plan to get Kumar Sangakkara in for the semi-final and beyond.
We had a captain who cared more than any other, a team who wanted to win and a nation to roar us home. 129 needed to win, and I just knew I had to stay there until the end. No fireworks until the trophy was in the bag, no risks and no losing thoughts or letting thoughts get ahead. Santokie crumbling, Andre Russell beating it, the captain taking us home.
It was glorious to win that tournament for Jamaica, glorious to do it with a young team. A weight felt like it had slipped from my shoulders. Jamaica had given me so much, and now I had given something back.
Ask any cricketer in the world where he most likes to play, and he’ll say the Caribbean. Ask any cricketer in the Caribbean where he most wants to be, and he’ll say Jamaica. The food, the nightlife, the people.
The gun culture? I’ve seen it. But every place has its own problem, its own bad areas. Guns are everywhere in the world. Talk to someone outside and they might say, isn’t Jamaica dangerous? And I say, is your country not dangerous? Where in the world is not dangerous? Jamaica has had it bad, but it is a better country now.
Neither is it all in the past. Just as music keeps reinventing itself, so does sport. Just as Shelly-Ann succeeded Merlene Ottey, so men will come to take my place.
We had calypso, we had ska. We had reggae, we had dub. We have Beenie Man and Bounty Killer, then along come Baby Cham, Capleton and Gage. Jamaican women representing themselves: Lady Saw, the Queen of the Dancehall to Beenie Man’s King; you have Tifa, you have Spice. They know when to hit the note – the high ones and the low ones, the ruff and the tuff and the easy ones. Even I’m recording tracks, laying vocals on tunes. First time in the studio, absolutely nailed it. Culture.
But there is darkness too. People will be pleased for your success, but there will be jealousy. Once you buy a fancy car, you build a house, some people think you shouldn’t have raised your head. They think you should always be where you started out, even when you have worked for it.
You have shed tears, you have thrown cuss words. You have shed blood for what you have achieved, and you have excelled. Still that is sometimes not enough.
A lot of open hands are going to come to you. People look at you different now.
I give back, but people don’t see that because I don’t highlight what I’ve done. I don’t talk about what I’ve done for a school, or for a heart foundation. So people don’t see those things. They just see you having fun, and they think, this guy’s always partying. Always partying, and nothing more to him. In Jamaica they see the negative side, and they talk negative.
I’ve been partying since I started, since before I played for the West Indies, since I escaped with a rewire heart when death came stalking. I party to be free and I party to celebrate each day and being alive within it. That’s the thing most people don’t understand.
Jealousy is there even within the cricketing arena. Guys are competing with you. Guys want to make you look small so they can look big.
I will try to ignore it, because I walk away from darkness. Breathe an’ let the stress an’ anger go.
Eventually it will prove itself. It will be real. But I don’t make them feel any wiser by saying anything. I just leave it where it is. Carry on doing my business, letting my smile kill them with success.
From the government has come very little. Sport and music are the most powerful forces for Jamaica in the world, yet while Courtney Walsh and Jimmy Adams have been recognized for what they have achieved, the same light has not shone on the younger group. I keep the flag flying. I bring people in the country. I’ve done something to uplift.
In 2015 I was given a diplomatic passport, which I’m grateful and thankful for. But for a long time there was nothing, and for long afterward there may be no more. I breathe, and I let it go. I use these things to drive me more, to excel in what I’m doing, to keep knocking down barriers, to keep doing good things for my country. I keep doing good things for my country, and I will never stop, because my love affair with Jamaica is long-term.
Kingston has Norman Manley Airport, it has Marcus Garvey Drive. Usain Bolt National Stadium should have followed already. They wait till you’re retired, but I would rather it happened now, while we’re still doing it. There’s no guarantee you’re going to live to see it.
I will keep giving back, for everything I want is in Jamaica. The people, the passion, the colours, the culture. We are it and it is we.
And that is why I have my foundation.
I understand that some kids have it hard. It is tough out there. Some parents find it hard to even help their own kids, just like growing up for me wasn’t easy as well. Sometimes you have to hustle yourself to get your own money. I’ve been there, and I know what it’s like. I know how it feels to beg for money. I know how it feels.
Eight kids every year, aged between 16 and 22. To Lucas every Wednesday afternoon and again every Saturday, bus fare and lunch paid for. Cricket coaching and academic assistance; guest speakers and public speaking, help with etiquette and confidence for the younger ones, help with job hunting for the older. When they graduate, they come back into the academy to talk to those still there.
The boys have lived a life. One about to be kicked out of school for running in gangs and fighting wherever. Another kid who barely spoke for the first two months, us trying to gradually coax the fears and the laughter out of him. We mentor and we mend. There is so much to do, but we do what we can.
We don’t pretend it will be easy. I hope the upcoming youngsters can look at me and think, if he can do it, I can do it. Men have done it before me and there’s no doubt they’ll do it after me. I’m just one lucky enough to excel. I utilize and take the chance.
I put in my work to be where I am today, and I send that message. If they’re willing to make the sacrifices and put in the hard work, then one day they can be as Chris Gayle, or even better than Chris Gayle.
It’s not going to be that it will all come to you tomorrow. Since the day I was born the work has been put in. Climb the ladder, take the step one by one.
Everywhere I have been, I have made sure I leave a mark. From a young age, always leave a mark. Always an innings, in whatever tournament, and I will be remembered for that. Wherever I go in the world for franchise cricket, I leave a mark still. That’s how I portray it to the boys. Take control. Leave your mark.
A lot of kids are out there, not getting the opportunities, not getting an education, getting in trouble. We run one small programme, even if we want to spread it to Dubai and India and beyond. But even if you help one boy then that is one life more to celebrate. It is one more life in the light.
And celebrate we will.
I had scored a century in a Test match in my home stadium of Sabina Park, getting there against England in 2009 as captain in a match and series we won against the odds. I had done it three times in one-dayers – 123 against India in 2006, 125 v New Zealand in 2012, 109 against Sri Lanka the year after. But the Six Machine had never done it in a T20, and the Six Machine does not like to be stopped.
The Tallawahs against Trinidad and Tobago, Caribbean Premier League, July 2015. Under the lights, in front of my dad.
Jacques Kallis with the first over, his fourth ball beaten over long-on for six. Johan Botha with the opening over from the other end, two more sixes taken off him. Dwayne Bravo into the attack, three fours off his first dart.
After seven overs we were 70 for no wicket. My opening partner, Chadwick Walton, had just 13 of them.
I wasn’t going to be stopped. Not now. Not here.
Six after six. Some were going in the George Headley Stand, where I used to sit; some into the North Stand, where my father sat watching.
Once you’re on the go in Sabina Park, it is the match for even India’s noise. Horns blaring, people shouting. ‘Lick ’im Chris! . . . Lick ’im proper!’
Jamaicans like to be entertained. I entertained them. 105 out of a total of 180, nine sixes, six fours.
From Rollington Town to here. It’s a mighty ladder to climb, even if most people wouldn’t even understand.
Me, a Jamaican man, I understand. I’ll always keep the flag flying. I travel the world, but I always come home.