Fordyce Tom - Six machine I dont like cricket...I love it

This book is dedicated to all those people out there who have stood with me in the struggle: through the good, the bad and well, there hasnt been much ugly. Know from me that you can achieve what you want. Understand too that you should live the life you love, and love the life you live. Thank you to my family, friends and fans. One love.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

A dark hospital room in a foreign country. I am flat on my back, wires and sensors attached to my chest and coming out of my groin. I feel like Im coming to the surface after a deep dive. My breath is short and my head thick. It takes seconds of blinking and coughing to remember where I am.

All alone. None of those closest to me know I am here. Not my mum, not my dad, not my five brothers or big sister or my best friends. I havent told them whats happening, because I dont want to worry them. Halfway round the world, they think Im playing cricket.

The cricket is going on without me. I am in Melbourne, in a ward on Bridge Road, just a lofted six from the giant pylons of the MCG. The rest of the West Indies squad have flown west to Adelaide. I am all alone.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

It started in when I was 16. Feeling a little bit out of breath when I hadnt done anything to get out of breath about. You feel difficult. Its like breathing but not breathing. You try to catch the air but it wont come. You lift up your shirt and with a lurch you can see it, your heart ticking and jumping under the skin.

I ignore it and carry on. A sudden movement, and it knocks on the door again. Breathing but not breathing. The skin ticking and jumping.

There is something wrong with a valve. It scares me thinking about it, so I keep playing cricket as if all is smooth and easy. Playing Test matches, feeling like a king, the World Boss, the Six Machine, only for it to come again and again. I have to stop games, signal to the umpire. Down on my haunches, calling for water. Trying not to show any weakness to the opposition, to the leery bowlers, but inside scared scared scared.

Always in my mind. I speak to the West Indies Cricket Board about it, about getting money for surgery. They are hesitant. I speak to the players association; they step in.

We travel round Australia, and my heart haunts every hot mile. We come to Melbourne and I make the decision. Ive never before had any sort of surgery, never been put to sleep. My team-mates move on and I stay back, all alone.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

So here I am, lying in the hospital bed, a drip in my arm, the heart monitor showing green lines. Wires and patches. Im not allowed to lift anything or have something to drink. Im not allowed to move.

I was happiest when I was young, when I was carefree. You dont know the danger and you dont know responsibility. As life catches you up there is more and more to it: worries, pressures, bills upon bills.

As a kid you just carry on living. Go out and have fun, play cricket and football in the street, talk about girls, shoot birds for breakfast. You dont know how free you are. You dont think about whats ahead of you. You dont worry about whats down the road, where youre going to be, what youre going to become. You just think about playing cricket, because thats all you want to do.

And now I am cheating death.

We have a saying in Jamaica: Use sleep an mark death. Sleep foreshadows death. You get warnings in life, and the wise man heeds them.

In that moment I realize I have changed. Looking down at the wires, the patches, my heart no longer jumping under my skin, I make the vow.

From this day on, Im going to enjoy life endlessly. Whenever Gods will I get better, Im going to do everything to the fullest. No waiting, no hedging, no compromises, no apologies. Night wont stop me, dawn wont stop me. Wherever I go, Im going to have fun.

I call my family. Things start to happen. Jamaicans in the city bring me soup and home-cooked specials. My strength comes back, and the vow remains.

I fly home. On my first night I go straight to a club. On my second night I go to a club. On my third night I cant remember my second night.

I picture a green graph like the ones Ive been watching on the cardiograph, except this time showing parties per week rather than heartbeats. In Melbourne Im flatlining. In Kingston theres a spike that wont calm down.

And I have a new philosophy to go with my newly mended heart. Just breathe. Breathe. Get out in the air and breathe.

Define yourself, what you want to do. Breathe and let the stress and anger go. And you will be guided accordingly. Your mind will take you places.

It comes to me naturally. You cant live in the darkness. You must come into the light.

Im weird. Im a weirdo.

You think you know me? You dont know me.

Yuh cyaan read me. Yuh cyaan study me. Doh even try study me.

You think you know Chris Gayle. World Boss. The Six Machine. Destroyer of bowlers, demolisher of records, king of the party scene.

Youre right. You also wrong. I am complicated. I am all you see and much more you dont. My name in lights, my true self hidden away. Sometime the main man, sometime quiet and chill. Sometime the life and soul, sometime the silent man. Confident. Shy. The joker, the observer. All mouth and sweet talk, all silence and down come the shutters.

Im a man who can grind out a Test triple century and then do it again, a man who on a different day can smash 100 runs off 30 balls. I have hit more T20 sixes than any other man in history; I have stood invincible on a ground for two days while every one of my team-mates fell. Ive opened a strip bar in my own house; Ive started a foundation for poor kids in my home city.

Complicated.

You think you know me? I party harder than any other cricketer yet Im strong and mighty when the pretenders have retired. I blow big cash on big nights but saved my sweetest payday for my brothers heart operation. I hate to run and I love to bat. I speak English to the world and patwah with my friends, the kid from the bad part of town who made it good.

People think Im arrogant. No attitude towards the game of cricket. That Im facety rude, disrespectful. That I dont care about the sport that brought me up, that I only care about the money.

Maybe they misinterpret things. Maybe its the way I bat. I play a lot of shots, and sometimes I get out. Maybe they think I dont care. Maybe thats how it looks on television, or through the pages of an old coaching manual. I play my shots and I get out. I get out on 40 so they say I dont care as much as the man who gets out on five.

Trus mi, dem nuh know wah dem a chat bout.

I play with smiles and good times, so they think Im not serious about the game. You see me drop a catch and laugh? You take a bad thing and make a joke of it. Thats how you deal with it. Thats me.