Quick-fired and brilliant hundred from Chris Gayle helped West Indies beat England in their opening match. West Indies won the match by six wickets with 11 balls to spare.
Invited to bat first, England batterd pretty well and scored a pretty decent score of 182 for the loss of 6 wickets. West Indies reached their target with eleven balls to spare. Score - England 182/6 (20 overs) and West Indies 183/4 (18.1 overs).
It is always really a sweet thing to watch Chris Gayle batting, especially when he is on the summit of his form. Today was such a wonderful day and the crowds gathered at Wankhede stadium in Mumbai witnessed a thrilling batting performance by that tall man from West Indies. Gayle remained unbeaten on 100.
In his 48-delivery long innings he had sent the ball into the crowds for 11 times and had hit five boundaries; scoring 86 runs through boundaries. However, he might be unhappy as he narrowly missed the record for the fastest century in ICC T20s which still remains in the name of Richard Levi of South Africa who reached the triple figure in just 45 balls.
Levi was lucky today that his record was not broken. But that does not give him any guarantee that this tall man from West Indies will not break it when the team enters ground for the next match. The history says that he has done it in just 30 balls (for Royal Challengers Bangalore) and earlier too he had reached the triple figure in 50 balls.
Sent to bat first, England scored 182 for the loss of six wickets. Every batsmen contributed to their total at a strike rate over 100. Joe Root top scored with 48 from 36 deliveries. Buttler (30 from 20 balls), Hales (28 from 26 balls), Morgan (27 from 14 balls) also contributed well. Russell and Bravo took two wickets each while Benn claimed one.
For the West Indies, losing opener J Charles in the first over, the beginning was not that good. Samuels and Gayle took the team over 50 in the power-play overs. In their 55 run second wicket partnership, Gayle contributed only 15. But soon after the power-play, Samuels who was batting well smashing 37 on 27 deliveries with the help of eight boundaries; fell to Rashid. Once Samuels departed Gayle rose to the occasion and since then the England had no chance of winning. For England Moeen Ali, Willey, Topley and Rashid claimed one wicket each.
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