WATCH | Chris Gayle unleashes his monstrous self in BPL final against Dhaka Dynamites
When Chris Gayle starts to fire, it is almost impossible for any team to stop the riot and Dhaka Dynamites got a first-hand experience of the same in the BPL final yesterday. Gayle absolutely decimated the bowling attack, hitting 18 sixes during his innings - the most in a Twenty20 innings.
The Gayle force came down on the Dynamites from the second over as he decided to hit the ground running by hitting fours instead of taking the aerial route from the outset. But once, he lofted one right over the long-on fence in the sixth over, there was no way the bowlers could restrict him. He went on to hit 17 more sixes after that and smashed several records on his way to an unbeaten 146 off 69 balls. The "Gaylestorm" was enough to dent the confidence of Dynamites as they could manage just 149/9 in response.
During the century, Gayle crossed the 11,000-run mark in T20s and also posted the highest individual score in a final of a T20 League. The big man also became the only batsman to have 20 T20 centuries and crossed the 100 sixes mark in BPL. He also went past his own record of 17 sixes in a T20 match, during his unbeaten 175 against Pune Warriors in the 2013 IPL.
But the innings was not without flaws as Dynamites' skipper Shakib al Hasan dropped him at extra cover when he was on 22. That drop proved to be the match-changing one as the self-proclaimed “the Bradman of T20”, decided to send the bowlers on a leather hunt and toyed with whatever challenge was thrown at him.