RCB’s Gayle smashes century off 30 balls, makes record 175 not out

Explosive West Indies opener Chris Gayle smashed a century off 30 balls in an Indian Premier League match on Tuesday and finished on 175 not out, the highest ever Twenty20 innings.

Playing for the Bangalore franchise, Gayle blasted 17 sixes and 13 fours off just 66 deliveries to take his team to a mammoth total of 263 for five wickets.

Royal Challengers Bangalore scored 263 for five wickets in its 20 overs whilst Pune Warriors managed only 133 runs for the loss of nine wickets giving the former an easy 130 run victory.

The destruction inflicted on the Warriors’ bowlers broke a series of records. Gayle smashed the fastest century in the format off 30 balls; made the highest individual T20 score (175 not out); struck the most sixes by a batsman in a T20 innings (17); helped Royal Challengers Bangalore hit the most sixes for a team in a T20 innings (21) and reach the highest total in T20 cricket (263).

Pune captain Aaron Finch watched helplessly as the 33-year-old Jamaican swatted the bowlers to all parts of the ground and some of the sixes flew out of the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Gayle’s 30-ball century eclipsed the 34-ball hundred scored by Australian Andrew Symonds for Kent against Middlesex in 2004. The left-hander also posted the highest individual score in a Twenty20 game, going past New Zealander Brendon McCullum’s 158.

Flamboyant Pakistani Shahid Afridi holds the record of fastest international century in the 50-over format (37 balls) and South African Richard Richard Levi (45 balls) has made the quickest international T20 hundred.

Gayle’s innings was supported ably by opener Tillakaratne Dilshan, who was part of a 167-run opening stand, an IPL record, during which he only made 33. He quickly ceded floor to Gayle and played some attractive, text-book shots through point and down the ground. Unlike Dilshan at the start, AB de Villiers was the dominant partner in Warriors’ ruin at the death, thrashing 31 in just eight balls in a stand worth 44.

Gayle also impressed in his bowling taking two wickets for five runs in one over.