The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Gayle's knock gets experts' nod

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Sunday, Nov 05, 2006
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Gayle's knock gets experts' nod

Special Correspondent

Mumbai: One of the fascinating aspects of the game of cricket is its capacity to enthuse the followers from the layman on the street to the expert who has donned the national cap several times. On the eve of the ICC Champions Trophy final here on Saturday Ian Chappell, John Wright, Tony Greig, Ravi Shastri and Sanjay Manjrekar enlightened a select audience on the highlights of the ICC Champions Trophy and modern batsmanship at a Round Table discussion organised by Cricinfo.

All of them picked Chris Gayle's brilliant century against South Africa at Jaipur as an outstanding effort ahead of Ricky Ponting's half century against New Zealand and Stephen Fleming's 80 against Pakistan. They also gave full marks to Brian Lara for turning around the fortunes of a struggling side.

Lara has impressed upon the newcomers the great legacy of West Indies cricket and as defending champion of the competition.

Lara said he has not fully recovered from back spasms. "After the match against Australia there was a break of about a week and I thought I'd be back to full fitness, but I didn't know the extent of the injury.

"But my back has not been an hindrance on the field and the way the other batsmen have performed it hasn't called for much contribution with the bat from me so far, which is great," said Lara.

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