As of this day, Chris Gayle has 21 T20 cricket, a whopping 14 more than anyone. He is the only batsman in the world to have crossed 10,000 T20 cricket runs. He has the highest score in T20 cricket, 175 from which everyone is far away. Gayle also holds the record of the fastest T20 century ever, he scored in just 30 balls. Today, without a doubt, Chris Gayle is truly the Bradman of T20 cricket.

Such was not the case in 2011 though. At that time, he was not on the list of WICB’s favorites. The West Indian opener was not picked by any franchise in the recently concluded IPL Auction. He had been snubbed to the discarded ‘Unsold’ players list. Chris Gayle then received a call that changed his life.

Royal Challengers Bangalore were having a terrible season. Of the five matches that they had played so far they had won only one match. To worsen the condition, they lost their pace bowler Dirk Nannes to an injury. They hurriedly sought the replacement. They replaced their fast bowler with an opening batsman, the batsman’s name was Christopher Henry Gayle.

Gayle made an enormous impact in the season that he arrived. In the 2011 season, he scored 608 runs at an astounding strike rate of 183 with two T20 centuries and three half-centuries. He was winning matches for Royal Challengers Bangalore single-handedly. From that season onwards, Gayle was always the prime target in every team management. He was the first player on every fantasy team.

The Gayle-mania continued for the next two years in the IPL. In 2013, He scored the mind-blowing 175* against hapless Sahara Pune Warriors. He had now scored four IPL centuries in total. After a lean season in 2014, he scored one century more in 2015. In the 2017 season, he only scored 200 runs in the 9 matches that he played. The poor form led him being unsold again at the IPL auction.

It was at the last moment that KXIP bought Gayle and just yesterday he smacked his 6th IPL century. The legend of Gayle lives on.