Return of the Prodigal Son

Fresh off the plane from Jamaica, Chris Gayle’s innings took off immediately as he announced himself at the Indian Premier League in grand style.

A jubilant Gayle soaks in the a fairytale return to the IPL; Image Source: ESPN Cricinfo

Chris Gayle often blew hot and cold. Stuck in an endless loop between being too flamboyant and too uninspiring, Gayle blew hot and cold way too often. When T20 leagues around the world began cropping up, he had found his calling. Over the next few years, he became a T20 mercenary and set many tournaments on fire.

However, the Indian Premier League proved to be a tough nut to crack. Picked up by the Kolkata Knight Riders in 2009, he failed to impress anyone. This was the time of his life where his cricketing career had started to fall apart. He had constant run-ins with his cricketing board (to the point where they stopped picking him regardless of how he was performing), his fitness went ostensibly down and his interest in the other formats began to fade away.

Going unsold at the 2011 auctions was the metaphorical final nail in his coffer. Almost everyone wrote him off completely.

Right then, came a blessing in disguise. RCB’s Dirk Nannes injury was to force him out of that edition and they had to find a replacement. Dirk’s loss was Gayle’s gain and he was flown out immediately. Not many teams took notice; in hindsight, they should have.

His first game that year came against his former beloved KKR at their home ground, Eden Gardens. After choosing to bat first, KKR huffed and puffed to 171, thanks to Yusuf Pathan’s quickfire 46 from 24 balls.

Gayle opened the batting with Tillakaratne Dilshan, who got off to a flyer of a start. By the time he raced off to 19 in the fourth over, Gayle had managed just the 3 runs. Then Balaji served him a full-toss and Chris happily obliged.

From thereon began the carnage (which was mild by Gayle’s standard but still a ruckus). Admittedly, KKR’s attack was not great, but with the kind of disdain that he treated them, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference.

Unadkat, Balaji, Shakib, Bhatia, Abdullah- all of them got the treatment from Gayle. When the first wicket fell at the score of 123, the game had already been wrapped up by him. They were all thrown around for fun as he combined with Dilshan and then Kohli to seal the victory for RCB.

While the victory was already a foregone conclusion, a personal milestone was still in sight for him. Stuck on 98 at the other end, he saw Kohli swat away the ball for a boundary with just 6 required. He blocked the rest of the over, but Gayle got a real scare as Abdullah fired it wide, further eating into the target.

With 1 required, Gayle smashed Shakib one last time through the covers to get to his century. The wide smile returned to his face as he raised his bat to acknowledge his team for having shown faith in him. Gayle went on to win the orange cap that season and the next (narrowly missing out on a hattrick of them in 2013) and RCB spent the next 7 years thanking him for his whirlwind batting. They had found themselves a reliable opener and Chris Gayle found himself a home- a place he could claim as his own and a group of people that loved him like anything.