Chris Gayle is a West Indies cricketer and a former captain, he has captained the West Indies' Test side from 2007 to 2010. Considered one of the greatest batsmen in limited-overs cricket, Gayle has set and tumbled numerous records across all three formats of cricket.
As compared to his lavish life style today and with what he has been able to achieve, this was not how his life was when he was a child. The fifth child out of six, Gayle’s father was a policeman and his mother sold nibbles in their neighbourhood. Though they were never poor, the Gayle family was far from well-off.
Cricket was in Gayle’s blood. His grandfather had played club cricket, and passed on his passion to the young Chris.
The laidback attitude is not a recent development; Gayle had always been rather lethargic. So much so that as a teenager he was called “crampy”, which means someone who is incredibly lazy.
At an age of 19 years, Gayle made his First-Class debut in 1998/99 for Jamaica. In the same year, he made his List-A debut as well. Prior to playing First-Class cricket he had represented West Indies at youth international level as well.
The dashing West Indian southpaw made his ODI make a big appearance against India in 1999 while his Test make a big appearance came against Zimbabwe in 2000. In any case, it was not significant for him as in his first ODI he scored just 1 run while in his Test make a big appearance he could score just 33 runs.
It was in 2002 when his fortunes changed completely as he accumulated big runs with the bat. In 2002, he compiled 2,013 runs in international cricket which included 4 centuries and 14 half-centuries.
In 2012, he became the first cricketer in Test cricket history to smash the first ball of a Test match for a six. He achieved this feat against Bangladesh and the bowler was Sohag Gazi.
Chris Gayle became the first West Indies Cricketer to score 7000 runs and more than 150 wickets in ODIs.
Chris Gayle is renowned as the king of T20 cricket with almost every other record in his kitty. He has played 222 T20 matches and has accumulated 8,224 runs at a staggering average of 44.21
