Just when you thought the world's greatest Twenty20 batsman has done everything, he goes and breaks just about all remaining records. We all knew Chris Gayle can win matches on his own but today he beat Pune Warriors all by himself. 175 in 66 balls, two wickets in one over, ... I half expected to inspect the scorecard and find he'd stumped Murtaza off his own bowling!
People have slammed the opposition bowling for being weak but, let's face it, this is T20. When a humungous talent like Gayle sits in the zone, no bowler on earth can stop him, short of tempting a mis-hit to a man on the square leg boundary. Not Steyn, not Ajmal, not Narine. I have often derided the format for producing one-off star performances and building instant reputations which can never again be justified. However, the amiable Jamaican is in a class of his own once he gets going. Viv Richards in his pomp was similar in the way he could be snaffled early in an innings but, with a few cracking boundaries to his name, bowlers could merely watch and admire. And that was in Test matches. He achieved the highest ever score in T20, the highest number of sixes (17) and the fastest ever T20 century, in a mere 30 balls.
What was even more astonishing is that his innings was interrupted by rain!
Gayle's career statistics make incredible reading. Brad Hodge may have accumulated more T20 runs in total, but the West Indian's 5,236 have come in a mere 134 innings. His strike rate is bettered only by Kieron Pollard but his Caribbean colleague has struck nowhere near his awesome record of 383, an average of almost three every time he takes guard! Gayle has scored almost as many runs and centuries in T20 as he has in Tests. Eleven hundreds all told; that's the same as McCullum, Warner, Sehwag and Pollard COMBINED!
It must be a great feeling to be an RCB fan right now, yet Gayle didn't even have the highest strike rate in today's innings. That accolade went to team-mate AB De Villiers who had the audacity to plunder 31 runs in only eight balls at the death. And nobody will remember it because this day belonged to Chris Gayle. It took 2962 ODIs before Sachin Tendulkar claimed the first 50+-over double-century. I suspect that it could take a lot fewer before Mr Gayle plunders the first twenty-over 200. His ODI best is a 'puny' 153 not out but I wouldn't complain if he reproduced his IPL heroics in the Champions Trophy semi-final at Cardiff this summer!
