Chris Gayle today took the Garden City by storm as he blasted his way into the record books by slamming the fastest century and the highest score in the history of Twenty20 cricket here.
The strapping Jamaican took just 30 balls to get to the three-figure mark, eclipsing Andrew Symonds 34-ball effort, as Royal Challengers Bangalore posted a T20 record 263 for five in their Indian Premier League match against Pune Warriors, riding on Gayle’s breathtaking unbeaten 175.
The previous highest total by a team in this form of the game was 260 by Sri Lanka.
In all, he scored 175 off a mere 66 balls, leaving the opposition shell-shocked at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
For those who witnessed the relentless onslaught from the stands, the visit was definitely worth it as it rained sixes and fours.
Gayle hammered an unprecedented 17 sixes to go with his 13 fours.
By the time he had reached his century, 98 off Gayle’s runs had come in boundaries (8 Fours and 11 Sixes). For the record, he consumed 23 balls to reach 150 from 100, which was the slowest of the three fifties, giving a fair indication of what he actually did to the clueless bowlers.
His strike-rate at the end of the innings was a staggering 265.15.
Before Gayle wrecked havoc, Yusuf Pathan held the record of posting the quickest century in IPL, achieving the century in 37 balls.
Barring Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Luke Wright, none of the bowlers were spared by Gayle, with Ali Murtaza and Mitchell going for 45 and 56 runs in two and three overs respectively.
Aaron Finch was smashed for 29 runs in the only over he bowled.
Even as there was no stopping the Gayle-storm, A B de Villiers made 31 off just 8 balls.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 AB de Villiers, 5 Saurabh Tiwary, 6 KB Arun Karthik (wk), 7 Ravi Rampaul, 8 R Vinay Kumar, 9 Murali Kartik, 10 RP Singh, 11 Jaidev Unadkat
Pune Warriors: 1 Robin Uthappa (wk), 2 Aaron Finch (capt), 3 Yuvraj Singh, 4 Steven Smith, 5 Luke Wright, 6 Mitchell Marsh, 7 Mithun Manhas, 8 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 9 Ishwar Pandey, 10 Ali Murtaza, 11 Ashok Dinda.