Chris Gayle, a player who is known for his lightning sixes and is known as one of the best batsman of Twenty20 format cricket, was almost went unpurchased from this year’s edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The 38 year old Jamaican batsman, whose fitness and form has been hit the rock bottom over the last year went twice unsold, on Saturday and on Sunday morning in IPL 2018 Auction. His team from the past couple years RCB has also not shown interest in him this time.
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Gayle is not the first time as IPL 2018 auction
However, Gayle was brought back into the IPL 2018 auction for the last time, and Kings XI Punjab, co-owned by Preity Zinta, whose way of buying players this time had been talk of the town for the past couple of days, got him for his base price of 2 Crore.
For the past couple of years Gayle had been the part of Royal Challengers Bangalore captained by Virat Kohli, but his weak hamstring and poor form got him out of the team for this edition of IPL.
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Due to the major controversy in which he was fined for passing lewd comments to an Australian reporter he was fined and due to this he was also not seen in the Big Bash League this season.
Gayle going for a six in Big Bash League
However, everything was not against the star player. In 2017 Bangladesh Premier League playing for Rangpur Riders, the Jamaican batsman finished as the top run maker with a total of 485 in 11 matches played at an average of 53.88. In the finals of BPL, Chris scored an unbeaten 146 off 69 balls which helped Rangpur riders defeat Dhaka Dynamites. He smashed 18 sixes in that innings- which is a world record.
But again his form deteriorated when he was back with West Indies for limited-overs series against New Zealand in Dec-Jan, scoring only 22 and 4 in the ODIs and 12 and 0 in the two games he played.
The man who is considered as the beast of T20 format in cricket and has the record of the fastest T20 century in 30 balls against Pune Warriors in the IPL 2013 has got only one chance to prove his caliber and shine. But does his form revive and will he able to deliver again one last time, is the big question.