IPL’s best moments: April 23, 2013 – Chris Gayle’s 30-ball century for Bangalore

As the UAE prepares to host the opening 20 matches of this season’s Indian Premier League, The National is looking back at 16 memorable moments from the first six stagings of the competition.

For years, 175 has been an almost sacred number for Indian cricket fans, reminding them of Kapil Dev’s heroic innings against Zimbabwe at the 1983 World Cup.

Last April, Chris Gayle added further significance to that number.

There was no inkling of what was to come as Gayle walked out to face the Pune Warriors attack. The first over also passed without any indications, with Gayle taking a single off the third ball. The Royal Challengers Bangalore were 3-0 at the end of it.

The second over, however, was the start of an astonishing assault that eventually concluded with Gayle scoring the fastest century in professional cricket, reaching the three-figure mark off just 30 balls. He scored 101 runs from the 27 deliveries he faced from the start of the second over till the fifth ball of the ninth, smashing 11 sixes and eight fours.

The big Jamaican faced 36 more balls in the innings and returned unbeaten on 175 – the highest individual score in Twenty20 cricket. And his blitzkrieg helped the Challengers post 263 for five – the highest score in 20-over cricket. The 17 sixes he hit that day is also a record for an innings, as is the 154 runs he scored off boundaries.

Watching that innings, the India captain MS Dhoni later tweeted: “Life is all about taking the right decision. Seeing Gayle bat today, I think I took the right decision being a wicketkeeper.”

All the Pune bowlers that night must have been wishing they had done the same.

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