By: Precious Mills

BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Tuesday 4th September 2018) – In a recent media interview, St.Kitts-Nevis Patriots captain Chris Gayle revealed that he checked a weather app on his cellphone during the rain-affected Caribbean Premier League (CPL) match played on Sunday 2nd September at the Warner Park Cricket Stadium in Basseterre which saw his team defeating the Jamaica Tallawahs- Gayle’s former squad- following a Duckworth-Lewis-Stern (DLS) victory.

The Patriots won by seven wickets in the match which was reduced to 11 overs due to rain.

The score board saw Patriots 118 for three off 10.1 overs (Rassie van der Dussen 45 not out, Chris Gayle 41, Mahmudullah 28 not out) while for the Tallawahs 206 for six off 20 overs -Rovman Powell 84, Glenn Phillips 40, David Miller 32; Ben Cutting 2-29.

Notably, the seven-wicket win was an exciting moment for fans since the Patriots  lost two previous games playing against the Guyana Amazon Warriors and the Trinidad and Tobago Knight Riders the following matches played on Tuesday 28th August and Saturday 1st September respectively.

A match between the Patriots and Barbados Tridents was called off on Thursday 30th August due to rain.

In a live on field interview following Sunday’s match, Tallawahs captain Andrew Russell admitted “…It wasn’t our night so well done to St.Kitts [Nevis].

The interviewer pointed out that it was Russell’s first time coming up against Chris Gayle bowling against him in CPL, and asked what it was like.

“It’s always a nervous feeling you know he is a universe boss. He has the stats to show and he have murdered most bowlers around the world so bowling towards him is always a threat and at the end of the day you try to bowl as…to him to keep him off and get him off strike so I guess it’s always a challenge always going,” the Tallawah’s captain said about his former team captain.

Commenting on the Patriot’s victory Gayle remarked: “It’s a big relief to be honest with you for the team and more so for the fans to especially. We didn’t want what happened to Barbados to happen to us here as well even though we have one more game to go this was an important game to us to actually get two points and that actually put us in a safe position but still a lot of cricket to go. We haven’t been playing our best cricket yet so hopefully in the playoffs that when we turn up and …be ready.”

The interviewer commended Gayle on a “good decision making” pointing out that he knew the rain would come and interrupt the game which saw him opting to bowl first.

“Yeah” Gayle said while laughing “I checked the weather app on my phone and saw that rain was going to come at 9PM…”

In talking about the team’s strategy in light of such, he shared: ” …like I said, we just needed our batting and bowling to actually do it for us and to lift our game out in the outfield as well.”

This reporter decided to chit-chat with fans and sports enthusiasts about the match.

Sports Director Anthony Wiltshire had this to say:“Well we are happy that the Patriots won this evening but there are some issues that we have to ensure that we work on. The captaincy Chris Gayle, personally I don’t think that he’s marshalling the forces as he should. In terms of the training of us bowlers, I have an issue with that as well and he as the master batsman , he has to lead from the front realizing what impact he has on the rest of the team because you realise in most of the matches once Chris fails it’s like the team goes in limbo so going forward, we expect him to step up to the plate so that he can motivate his players but this evening we have come out and we are very happy that we have won because we have been disappointed especially last evening so we look forward to winning Barbados on Tuesday and then going to the play offs hoping that this time , we won’t be any runner up but that we will win and we will bring home the coveted trophy.”

Asked whether or not he was optimistic about the Patriots winning that day, he responded: “At one point I was a bit down but then I’ll say the rain worked in our favour as well this evening because… when the rain actually came, if the match had stopped at that stage, we would have run because we were seven runs ahead of the Jamaicans but afterwards it was touch and go and our batsmen really delivered this evening so we say congratulations to our team and we look forward to better things as we go towards the play offs.”

Buckie of BuckieGotIt media commented: “The Patriots won. We had some showers and it worked in our favour so I’m happy. Last year it didn’t work in our favour against Trinidad so I’m happy that the patriots came out and put us in number four spot and we have another game on Tuesday so we’re looking forward to a big turnout. The Ducksworth method it worked in our favour and I’m happy that the Patriots won and so I’m looking forward for more fans to come out with more St.Kitts-Nevis flags and more Patriots flags.”

Questioned about whether or not he believed the Patriots would have won, he said: “As Gyale said the better team win so it’s sports so I expect anything but the point is we needed this win and I think the fans are going to feel much more better, much more comfortable knowing that we got the two points tonight so I think the team itself. I think Chris Gayle was under some pressure. I heard that he was attacked on the media today but overall the match went in our favour and so I’m looking for more Patriots fans to show up on Tuesday.”

A young female in her 20s who chose to be anonymous said she is not particularly a fan of the Ducksworth method.

“I feel like the win was good. I don’t particularly like the Duckworth method. However, it played in our favour tonight because in the power play we really opened up and gave a good amount of runs so it was in our favour. After the rain when they educed the runs I realised that the fellows came down and they decided that they are going to buckle down and knock out those runs; that’s what they did and I’m very proud of them. However, if it wasn’t for the….method, I kinda feel like we probably would have lost so I’m glad for that.”

Cricket action continues today featuring the Patriots vs the Barbados Tridents at 6PM.