‘Gayle Force’ blew away the Pune Warriors as the big-bodied Jamaican struck 17 sixes and 13 fours en route to the fastest ever T20 century in only 30 balls. Of the 175 runs, 154 runs came in boundaries.
At the end of all the madness, before the applause and the TV
interviews, there was a moment’s silence in the stands, almost as if
those gathered had been winded by what had unfolded. As a rule, nothing
he should do on a cricket ground ought to surprise anyone; but at the M.
Chinnaswamy Stadium on Tuesday. Chris Gayle surpassed himself, making
the highest individual score in T20 cricket and the swiftest hundred in
all forms of the game, in an exhibition of ceaseless, remorseless
hitting.
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| Chris Gayle 175 (66b, 13x4, 17x6) |
The visitor pursued RCB’s 263, the tallest innings total in the history
of the format, in some earnestness, but it was simply futile, the run
chase long condemned to be a mere footnote to what had gone before.
As if the pain he had inflicted with the bat was not enough, Gayle
returned to perform the last rites, taking two wickets — and doing the
Gangnam Style jig for the crowd — in the final over.
Earlier, PWI inserted RCB in to bat after winning the toss (a cruel joke
in hindsight), and almost at once — eight balls had been bowled — the
rain came down. The interruption lasted close to a half-hour; Gayle
re-emerged at 4:40 p.m., and ultimately walked back, with close of
innings, at 6:15. In between, there was unbridled carnage.
First, Ishwar Pandey was whacked for 21 runs in his (interrupted) debut
IPL over — some baptism. If Pandey had been thumped like a bowler out of
college, Mitchell Marsh (28 runs in his first over) got the high-school
treatment; Ali Murtaza (2-0-45-0) and the captain Aaron Finch
(1-0-29-0) were flogged beyond recognition.
The Gayle that turned up on the afternoon was far from the tranquil,
restrained self of Saturday; this was a man in a frightful hurry.
His hundred arrived in the ninth over, with a vicious six off Murtaza
that left a dent on the edge of the roof. It had taken all of 30 balls,
eclipsing the T20 (34, Andrew Symonds) and IPL records (37, Yusuf
Pathan) comfortably.
In total, Gayle struck an eye-watering 17 sixes, one more than Graham Napier’s all-time T20 high.
The records sped by: a four off Bhuvneshwar Kumar (whose bowling figures
of 4-0-23-0 look Herculean) took him past Brendon McCullum’s 158,
hitherto the highest individual score in T20 cricket, made,
coincidentally, at the same venue.
With help from Tillakaratne Dilshan — who with Gayle added 167 for the
first wicket — and A.B. de Villiers, RCB rattled up a gigantic 263,
eclipsing Sri Lanka’s 260 as the highest team total in the format.
He’d only had an omelette, two pancakes and one hot chocolate in the
morning, Gayle said afterwards. Lunch, it seems, was to be consumed at
the ground.