Christopher Henry Gayle

Christopher Henry Gayle (born 21 September 1979 in Kingston, Jamaica) is a West Indian cricketer who is captain of the West Indies cricket team and plays domestic cricket for Jamaica. He is a hard-hitting left-handed opening batsman with a wide-range of shots, and bowls useful part-time right-arm off spin. Gayle is a successful One Day International player, with over 200 appearances for his country and 19 centuries. He is also a successful Test batsman, averaging just over 40.00, with a landmark 317 against South Africa. As a prominent one day player, Gayle was chosen by the Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League.[1] He has recently finished playing in the third season of the IPL.Gayle played for the West Indies at youth international level prior to making his first-class debut aged 19 for Jamaica. He played his first One Day International 11 months later, and his first Test match 6 months after that. Gayle, who normally opens the innings when he plays for the West Indies, is a destructive batsman who is most effective playing square of the wicket. In July 2001, Gayle (175), together with Daren Ganga (89) established the record for opening partnerships at Queens Sports Club, Bulawayo when they put on 214 together against Zimbabwe. However, generally speaking he had a slow start to his international career, but invigorated it in 2002, ending the year with three centuries against India in November and becoming the third West Indian to score 1,000 runs in a calendar year. Along with Vivian Richards and Brian Lara. He is one of only five players in One Day International history to have three or more scores of 150. In 2005, Gayle was dropped for the first Test against South Africa along with six other players following a dispute over sponsorship issues (see below). He returned for the second test but had a poor series until the fourth Test, where he made his career-best: a match-saving 317. It was the first ever triple century against South Africa and up until Mahela Jayawardene made 374, it was the highest individual Test score against them.