After his match-winning hundred – the first one of IPL 2018 – in the game against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Chris Gayle jokingly said, “Viru saved the IPL by picking me.” You know he is saying this in jest. It is not arrogance. It is just his usual confidence. Confidence that he is still not done yet. Confidence that he will bid adieu to the game when he wants to, and not when the world asks him to.
The West Indian batting star was picked late in the IPL auctions this year by KingsXI Punjab. No team had asked for him on the first day of the auction. There was a perception that Gayle is now a dwindling force and will be a liability. Hence not many teams were eager for him. But in the only two games he has played this season for Punjab, Gayle has smashed a half-century and along with a scintillating hundred. And it wasn’t just the runs he scored, but the way he got them that makes one believe that Gayle is here to stay for some more time.
The way Gayle tore apart Rashid Khan – the No. 1 T20 bowler in the world at present – in his hundred against Hyderabad was fascinating to watch. He took 41 runs off just 16 balls off the leg-spinner and smote him for six sixes, leaving Rashid dazed and confused. Moreover, Gayle is not just striking the ball well, but is also running between the wickets more urgently and taking the attack to the opposition right from the start itself.
Gayle means business. And that should really sound the warning bells for the other teams in IPL this time. Something similar had happened in IPL 2011 as well. Gayle was involved in a massive conflict with the West Indies cricket board and no IPL team bid for him in the auctions that year. He had come as an injury replacement for the Royal Challengers Bangalore and then went on to smash his way to an incredible 608 runs in the season. Ever since he has been one of the greatest performers in the IPL and has close to 4000 runs in the tournament at an average of 42.61. And over the years, despite his limited success in ODIs, Gayle has certainly established himself as the undisputed king of T20 cricket.
His numbers in the shortest form of the game are simply mind-boggling. 11235 runs with 21 hundreds and 68 fifties at a strike-rate of 149.30 in 325 matches. These are the numbers that have earned him various epithets like World Boss, Universe Boss, or Big Boss. Because there is no denying that Christopher Henry Gayle is a T20 legend and while age may be catching up with him with him now, he still has a lot left in the tank.
Gayle thrives on T20 cricket. He relishes the format and makes no bones about it. He is a T20 revolutionary and took on his own cricket board and jeopardized even his international career because of his want to keep playing T20 cricket for different franchises. He scored so many runs and took his game to such a level that no T20 franchise in the world could ignore him. Gayle’s phenomenal abilities in T20 cricket has earned him a remarkable fan following all over the world and crowds everywhere literally throng the stadiums just to get the chance to see him bat and crunch some mammoth sixes.
Gayle isn’t all about blind and savage hitting, though. There is a method in his madness. He has power. But he also has timing. He is aggressive, yet he is controlled about it. He plans his innings and targets his bowlers astutely. He knows how to conserve his energy and plays accordingly. Gayle is not just a great T20 batsman. He is a smart one as well. That is the reason he has survived so long. He keeps reinventing his game time and again and is extremely self-aware of his strengths and weaknesses. And that is why every time one thinks he is over Gayle keeps coming back stronger than ever.
Last season, Gayle had only managed 200 runs in 9 matches in the IPL. He had issues with his back, and the knee and he simply couldn’t get the big scores. His dot-ball percentage was rising and it looked like the Gayle force was over. But here is the big Jamaican yet again, redefining his game, slamming big sixes and scoring big runs for his team and looking as eager as hungry as he ever was. Yet again he is rising when he had almost been written off. He has a point to prove and he will not let go off this opportunity easily.
At 38 years of age, Chris Gayle is surely at the twilight of his career. But the good thing is that he is going into the sunset with his head and bat held high.