MUM­BAI–Twen­ty20 su­per­star open­er Chris Gayle says he is in talks with the West In­dies Crick­et Board for a pos­si­ble re­turn to Test crick­et.The 36-year-old left-han­der has played 103 Tests in a stel­lar ca­reer but has not suit­ed up in the longest for­mat in ex­act­ly two years.

"It's a pos­si­bil­i­ty I could re­turn. We are in talks, so we'll see what hap­pens," me­dia re­port here quot­ed Gayle as say­ing.

Though Gayle has not been seen in Tests, he has been in a per­ma­nent fix­ture in the Twen­ty20 side and was at the fore­front bat­ting line-up that helped West In­dies cap­ture two of the last three ICC T20 World Cup.

How­ev­er, he has been suc­cess­ful across all for­mats, plun­der­ing 7214 runs at an av­er­age of 42 in Tests and 9221 runs from 269 One-Day In­ter­na­tion­als.West In­dies, mean­while, have con­tin­ued to suf­fer in Tests and cur­rent­ly lie eighth in the in­ter­na­tion­al rank­ings.

Gayle said re­sults were un­like­ly to im­prove un­til the cur­rent young team ma­tured and re­la­tions be­tween the WICB and the play­ers were mend­ed.

"To be suc­cess­ful in Tests will ac­tu­al­ly take time since it's a re­build­ing process," said the left-han­der.

"The young­sters in the team need to ma­ture, gain a lot of ex­pe­ri­ence and they still need a few se­nior play­ers here and there to ac­tu­al­ly guide them along.

Gayle, who has played in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et for the past 17 years, said West In­dies had strug­gled with their con­cen­tra­tion in Tests and as a re­sult, had be­come adept at the T20 for­mat where less con­cen­tra­tion was re­quired.

CMC