MEL­BOURNE–Crick­et su­per star Chris Gayle has been quot­ed in Aus­tralia as say­ing one of his goals for the New Year is to re­sume his play­ing ca­reer with the West In­dies Test team bar­ring fur­ther in­jury.

Gayle told Re­porters in Mel­bourne yes­ter­day, had it not been for his lin­ger­ing back in­jury, he would have been play­ing in the cur­rent Test se­ries be­tween Aus­tralia and West In­dies.

The 36-year-old has been un­der­go­ing re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion work af­ter surgery on a de­bil­i­tat­ing back in­jury ear­li­er this year.

"I haven't re­tired from the game. Test crick­et is still on the agen­da, for sure," said Gayle, who played the last of his 103 Tests in Ju­ly 2014.

"I'm just com­ing back off an in­jury so there's no way I could've ac­tu­al­ly been part of that Test team. If I wasn't (re­cov­er­ing from a back in­jury) I would def­i­nite­ly. I haven't re­tired from the game".

Gayle, who has scored 7214 Test runs at an av­er­age of 42.18, has stressed that his in­ter­est in Test crick­et has not dwin­dled but ex­plained that his back prob­lems have de­layed his re­turn to the longer for­mat of the game.

He is play­ing for the Mel­bourne Rene­gades in the Big Bash League af­ter ear­li­er this month fea­tur­ing in four T20 match­es of the Bangladesh Pre­mier League.

The West In­dies open­er rep­re­sent­ed Barisal Bulls in the BPL and scored a blaz­ing un­beat­en 92 in a one sided vic­to­ry over Chit­tagong Vikings.

"I haven't bat­ted for such a long time that (when) I scored nine­ty two in a game and the next day I felt I'd been hit by a bus. This is the biggest chal­lenge, com­ing back in­to crick­et (af­ter) be­ing out of crick­et for maybe three-four months," he said.

"It's been tough, not much bat­ting. Those games (in Bangladesh) played a big part for me (in re­cov­er­ing from in­jury). It was good to be out here in the mid­dle".

Gayle has al­so ap­pealed for sup­port for the West In­dies team, com­pris­ing most­ly of young play­ers, say­ing they need time to de­vel­op as a Test play­ing side.

West In­dies lost sev­en of their last ten Test match­es and suf­fered a heavy de­feat in the open­ing Test match against Aus­tralia af­ter los­ing to a Crick­et Aus­tralia XI side that fea­tured six play­ers mak­ing their first-class de­buts.

"If you want to bash the crick­et, you bash me ba­si­cal­ly," he told the Dai­ly Tele­graph.

"We are loved around the world. We might not be play­ing good crick­et but... it's a young team so we have to def­i­nite­ly give it time rather than be­ing so harsh on West In­dies' crick­et all the time. Some young play­ers are com­ing through the ranks. We have to give them time."

Gayle has brushed aside sug­ges­tions that many West In­dies play­ers chose to play do­mes­tic Twen­ty20 com­pe­ti­tions, such as BBL and IPL in­stead of rep­re­sent­ing the re­gion in Tests.

"I don't know which blokes you're talk­ing about. If it's (Dwayne) Bra­vo he's re­tired from Test crick­et. I don't know any oth­ers with any oth­er is­sues," Gayle said. (CMC)