Cricket's biggest entertainer - The 'Gayle-storm'

The other day there was a debate in my office – Is T20 a batsman’s or a bowler’s game? The debate was settled before any side could speak. Christopher Henry Gayle, it seems, was hearing us and was smirking like he does in the recent Pepsi TV commercial. It was an assault not only on the Pune Warriors India players on the field, but also on the ones in the dugout. They were completely demoralised. It was like being subjected to a ‘Choke Slam’, a ‘Stunner’ and a ‘Rock Bottom’ one after another. My dad always says that to watch Sir Viv Richards bat was a treat. Ruthless power-play, free flowing strokes, merciless thwacking were some of the words he mentions. Today, I know exactly what he means.

175 runs were bludgeoned off 66 balls with a strike rate of 265 (What’s funny is that still, his strike rate was less than that of AB de Villiers who made 31 off 8 with a strike rate of over 300). In almost double the number of deliveries, the entire opposition could not score what he scored alone. The Jamaican giant was that impressive. Let’s take a look at the statistics of his knock – 17 power packed sixes (boundary ropes are imaginary for him), 13 fours (many of them were like tracer bullets) and 18 dot balls (had he scored off them, we would have seen the first double hundred in IPL and T20s). This is the quickest hundred in any T20 tournament, the highest individual score in all T20 matches and it had the most sixes in an innings by any batsman.

The Ben-Gayle-ru crowd loves the man. How many of us remember that Gayle was not picked up in the auction since his poor form with Kolkata Knight Riders? He came in as a replacement for Dirk Nannes and boy did he take the ‘being ignored’ thing seriously or what! He was the Orange Cap holder (which is still with him this season too) for that year and has been the nightmare for all the bowlers in the IPL ever since. This man is by far the most destructive T20 batsman ever. He plays T20 tournaments across the globe and has a century in each of the tournament he has played. With 11 centuries in T20s, he is leading the show in some style. David Warner and Brendon McCullum have five each. Do we need to speak more here?

The Jamaican is equally destructive in the other forms of the game. With a triple hundred to his name in Tests, he embodies the Calypso style of batting to the core. He has averaged over 40 in Tests and close to 40 in ODIs. But at the moment, nobody in the world is thinking about it. All the other IPL teams are more concerned about how to stop the ‘Gayleforce’. This tweet by @RCBTweets sums this feeling for the remaining 8 IPL teams – “Carnage starts with C and ends with an E. So does Chris Gayle”.

With a lot of cricket in the coming calendar, we are going to see a lot of him. The Calypso entertainer will continue to destroy the bowlers at will and do his favourite ‘Gangnam Style’ steps to entertain us. Cricket needs this character to bat, rejoice, dance and above all, entertain us. So watch out, the next ball might just be coming towards you.

P.S. – He also took two wickets yesterday.