A history of Gayle’s six-hitting

When Chris Gayle tonked young Kartik Tyagi over the lengthy leg-side boundary for his seventh six of the night, for the Kings XI Punjab against the Rajasthan Royals, it took him up to an incredible 1000 career sixes in T20 cricket, the first to get to the mark.

Already more than 3000 runs in front of Kieron Pollard when it comes to most runs in T20s, Gayle has – again – gone where no man has in the shortest format, stretching his lead at the top of the sixes’ chart to 311 by the time he finished up, with Pollard second at 690.

“A thousand maximums – another record? Oh, man,” he joked when asked about the achievement on Star Sports. “I don’t know, I just have to give thanks. Have to give thanks for hitting it well at age 41. A lot of dedication and hard work has paid off over the years. Still here, still doing it, same way. Very grateful.”

Here’s a look at Gayle’s incredible achievement, through numbers.

1001 – Sixes for Gayle in T20s. His first six came playing for Jamaica against Bermuda in the Stanford 20/20 in 2006. He has 1041 fours in the format too, just 40 more than his number of sixes.

349 – Number of sixes by Gayle in the IPL, which are the most by a batsman in any T20 league. He also has the most sixes in the CPL (162), Bangladesh Premier League (132) and T20 World Cup (60).

263 – Sixes by Gayle for the Royal Challengers Bangalore, the most he has hit for a single team, followed by 124 for the Jamaica Tallawahs, and 105 sixes for West Indies (in T20Is).

61 – Sixes Gayle has hit against the Kings XI Punjab, his most against a single opposition. He has also smashed 84 sixes for Kings XI since he joined them in 2018.

135 – Sixes hit by Gayle in 2015, his most in a calendar year. He next best is 121 in 2012. Overall, he has hit 100-plus sixes in six different years – 2011 to 2017, barring 2014.

18 – Most sixes by Gayle in a T20 match, for the Rangpur Riders against the Dhaka Dynamites in the BPL final in 2017. He hit 17 sixes in his knock of 175* for the Royal Challengers in 2013. No other batsman has hit more than 16 sixes in a T20 match.

17 – Sixes for Gayle against Dwayne Bravo in T20s, his most against a single bowler. He has hit 12 sixes against Imran Tahir and 11 each against Piyush Chawla, Rashid Khan and Shahid Afridi.

18 – Number of times Gayle has hit ten or more sixes in a T20 match. No other batsman has done it more than three times – Evin Lewis, Andre Russell and Shreyas Iyer.
(Cricinfo)