On his comeback to the Windies ODI side, Chris Gayle has been simply outstanding. He has rolled back the clock and looking as dangerous as ever. The opener scored a hundred in the 1st ODI, followed by a fifty in the next. Then, he took it to another level in the 4th ODI. But despite his thunderous effort, Windies ended up on the losing end.
In the fourth ODI between Windies and England at the National Cricket Stadium, St George’s, Grenada, the visitors batted first after losing the toss. They were on a roll from the outset as the openers Jonny Bairstow and Alex Hales added 100 runs together. Later, the captain Eoin Morgan made 103 from 88 balls and Jos Buttler powered his way to 150 from 77 balls. England ended up with a mammoth score of 418/6.
On most days, such a score will be beyond the reach of any team. When it came to the Windies side, only one man could have taken them close and it was Chris Gayle. Unlike the last games, he went on the offensive from the beginning. The English bowlers were clueless against his clean striking.
From 50 to 100 and then 150, he kept notching up milestones, one after the other. He scored 162 from just 97 balls with 11 fours and 14 sixes. When Ben Stokes accounted for his wicket in the 35th over, the score read 295/5. Windies was still standing in with a chance to have a shot at the target.
Carlos Brathwaite and Ashley Nurse took them close and at one stage, they needed 32 from 18 balls which were gettable going by the way the pair was batting. But Morgan’s masterstroke of bringing Adil Rashid for the 48th over proved to be the game-changer. The leg-spinner took 4 wickets in the over and Windies fell short by 29 runs.
Records that Chris Gayle made in his masterful knock
- Chris Gayle crossed the 10000-run mark in ODI cricket. He became the 2nd Windies player after Brian Lara and 14th overall to the landmark.
- He became the first Windies player to reach 4000 runs at home.
- The left-hander became the first batsman to hit 500 sixes in international cricket. Also, after Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi, he became the 2nd batsman to hit 300 ODI sixes.
- Gayle has hit 30 sixes in 3 innings of the series so far. This is now a record for most sixes in an ODI series/tournament. Previously, it was he who held the record with 26 sixes in the 2015 ODI World Cup. In an ODI series, the previous record was held by India’s Rohit Sharma when he hit 23 sixes from 6 games against Australia in 2013.
- The 39-year-old reached his century from 55 balls, which is the 2nd fastest for Windies. Brian Lara holds the record for the fastest century by a Windian (45 balls).
- This was also the 2nd fastest century in a losing cause. Jonny Bairstow struck a century off 54 balls against Scotland that England lost in 2018.
- Gayle now holds the record for most sixes by a batsman against a single team. His 75 sixes in 32 innings against England surpassed Rohit Sharma’s record of 66 sixes in 31 ODI innings against Australia.
- Chris Gayle’s 133 sixes in the Caribbean venues are the most by a batsman in a country in ODI cricket. He broke Brendon McCullum’s record of 126 ODI sixes in New Zealand.
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