Gayle’s demolition leaves everyone flabbergasted

What happened at the Chinnaswamy Stadium yesterday was no less than carnage. And more importantly, the ease with which it was done makes it even more arresting to watch. It was Gayle all the way. An innings that saw a 30-ball century and included 17 sixes, 13 fours and a strike rate of 265 after 66 deliveries. Mammoth!

Deciding to bowl first after winning the toss did not prove to be a great decision for Pune Warriors at the end of the day. Rather, it looked to backfire by the end of 5th over itself. It is all about decision making, and was tweeted rightly so by MS Dhoni.

Life is all about taking the right decision,seeing Gayle bat today I think I took the right decision of being a wicket keeper.

— Mahendra Singh Dhoni (@msdhoni) April 23, 2013

As Gayle carried on with his show, not a single bowler was spared. Bhuvneshwar Kumar was the only one to get away unscathed, but he had not bowled much to the beast after it was unleashed. Mitchell Marsh might never want to bowl to Gayle again. The 5th over of the innings, which was bowled by the seamer, marked the initiation of the demolition. It looked as if the ground was getting smaller after every delivery of that over, and Brian Lara rightly mentioned the scenario of the moment.

I like that one wen “Gayle bats fielders become spectators and spectators become fielders” chilling @ home watching some awesome hitting.

— Brian Lara (@BrianLara) April 23, 2013

Later, he scored 17 in the 7th over off Murtaza, and by this over he had made up his mind to deal in fours and sixes only. No more running for runs. After Marsh and Murtaza, it was Finch who got the same treatment. ‘No mercy’ said Gayle, and went on with another round of firing. He played 5 deliveries of that over which read 1-6-6-4-6-6.

To watch how Gayle does all of it is a treat to the eye. The 6’3” giant stood and lofted anything that was over-pitched around the off-stump area. He would get down on his knee for a few of the other deliveries and send it over deep mid-wicket. If someone delivered a length ball on the middle stump, he would slog it over long on. By the end, even short balls, to which he was watchful initially, were hammered out of the ground. There was almost no answer from any bowler at any point of the innings. The only time when Gayle stayed quiet (considering his bat does all the talking) was when he himself chose to, and that phase was right after he reached his century. He slowed down and wanted Dilshan to take charge, who himself was trying hard to get amongst the runs at the other end. However, the Sri Lankan was not able to sustain the overflow of adrenalin and was caught off the bowling of Luke Wright.

Right after Dilshan headed to the dugout, Gayle got back to work and exploded yet again. He slaughtered the deliveries of Ali Murtaza for 26 runs from 5 balls. The body language of Pune Warriors’ players was not positive and their shoulders dropped. De Villiers and Kohli made brief cameos in the movie and the Royal Challengers got to a record score of 263/5 in their 20 overs.

Gayle finished off with 175 from 66 deliveries. A number of records were made and everyone is well aware of all of them by now. The only man who was capable of doing something like this was Gayle, and I won’t be surprised if he does it again. The bowlers cannot be blamed for what happened. It was a bad game, where things were not under their control, a day when every bowler who was running in to deliver the next ball was praying only one thing to the Almighty – “God, Not Again!!”