Diary
World Cup Countdown Starts Now
By Chris Gayle
Jan 14, 2007, 20:06

After the Pakistan tour I spent some time at home over Christmas and New Year but now, World Cup fever is here and we’re all focusing very hard on that tournament.

We are on the road playing cricket so much nowadays that it was nice to spend some time with my family over Christmas and have a nice dinner and a few drinks. It was a similar family occasion for New Year’s Eve also. But from the fourth it was back into the cricket and it’s going to be full on from here on in.

The Carib Beer Series began on January 4 and we drew against Leeward Islands. I scored 39 and 18. At least we beat them in the KFC Cup a few days later when we cahsed 232. I scored 54 and three other guys also hit fifties. It's been nice just to play some cricket again after the break over Christmas.

We leave for India on Tuesday to play four ODI’s as part of our World Cup preparations, which will be good practice for us. It doesn’t matter where we play - whether it’s India or the Caribbean – as long as we get some tough international cricket under our belts that will do us.

Everyone is really looking forward to the trip because we all want to make sure we are in that 15-man World Cup squad. The build-up to the big event in the Caribbean has been going on for years so now it’s almost here the guys don’t want to miss out on getting picked.

From a personal point of view I am excited to be playing some more cricket out there in India after I was man of the tournament in the Champions Trophy a couple of months back. I have scored a few (four) centuries against them so hopefully I can continue in the same vein on this trip.

They are definitely going to come hard at us after we’ve had the better of them over the last few months and also because they just lost 4-0 in the one-day series in South Africa.

We are going to have to be ready for them because they are match fit and we have been on a break, so they are all on their games and we are going to have to get ourselves re-acclimatized very quickly.

The World Cup is now less than two months away and the run-in to that tournament starts here. It’s World Cup (thinking) all the way now for us and I’m sure for every other team in the competition.

All our preparation will be geared to the World Cup. We are confident for the tournament, we realise how reaching the final of the Champions Trophy, and also in Malaysia shortly before that, was good for us. It’s good to know that we can reach finals and play good cricket against some of the best teams in the world.