- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Australia’s Big Bash League is the best T20 tournament in the world, and it deserves the best batsman: Chris Gayle.
This is especially true next summer, when Fox Sports will take over coverage of men and women in all three international formats and the Big Bash from Nine and Ten.
There’s bound to be strong resistance from some quarters after the infamous ‘Don’t blush baby‘ quote to presenter Mel McLaughlin on air in January 2016 when Gayle openly flirted.
He was fined $10,000 and apologised, but the anti-quarters wanted him banned from future BBL tournaments. That didn’t happen, nor should it, but Gayle hasn’t played the Big Bash since.
Three months after that, Gayle and wife Natasha’a first kid was born – a daughter they called Blush. Cheeky bugger.
Next summer will be nearly three years since that infamous night, and it’s time to bury whatever hatchet is left.
McLaughlin moved from Big Bash host Ten to Seven in the interim. Lo and behold, Seven will soon cover cricket with chief host Fox Sports, which means Seven will also cover the BBL. Whatever.
Chris Gayle will be 39 next Australian summer, so he’s in the twilight of his extraordinary career. He has scored a mountain more T20 runs than any other batsman – it’s Gayle and daylight.
[latest_videos_strip category=”cricket” name=”Cricket”]
In 327 matches he’s plundered 11320 runs at 41.31, including 849 fours and 842 maximums. Next best is Kiwi Brendon McCullum’s 334 matches for 9114 at 30.79, with 861 fours and 445 sixes. Another West Indian, Kieron Pollard, is third from 420 games, scoring 8124 runs at 29.86 with 523 fours and 525 sixes.
It’s worth repeating: performance wise it’s Chris Gayle and daylight.
He’s not as agile as he once was, but he’s still the ultimate master blaster. It’s nothing for him to smash a bowler into the top deck, even out of the ground, using all his 191-centimetre, 98-kilogram frame as leverage with timing.
But when you boil it all down, it’s the massive maximums that capacity crowds come to see, and in that department Chris Gayle reigns supreme as well.
His IPL stats prove the point. Gayle has cracked 290 career sixes from just 106 visits to the crease It’s daylight again. Next best is Rohit Sharma’s 181 sixes from 168 visits, followed by AB de Villiers’ 180 from 135, MS Dhoni’s 180 from 168, Suresh Raina’s 180 from 169, Virat Kohli’s 171 from 157 and David Warner’s 160 from 114.
Simply, the Big Bash isn’t big enough without Chris Gayle.