KXIP's much required win in the season came at the back of a collective bowling performance and breezy half tons by their skipper Virat Kohli and explosive Windies batsman Chris Gayle.
Playing his first game in the 13th edition of the IPL in the UAE, the experienced Gayle played his hand with the willow in KXIP's second win of the season by racking up a quick-fire 45-ball 53 run knock. The dashing left handed strokemaker's breezy fifty was laced with five hits overs the fence and a single boundary.
Coming out to bat at No.3 behind the in-form opening pair of KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal, the hard hitting Jamaican took his time at the beginning of his innings by getting himself in and taking a stock of how the wicket was behaving.
After milking the singles with skipper Rahul, Gayle then stepped on the acceleration button to hit a few towering sixes of Mohammad Siraj and mystery spinner Washington Sundar to take Punjab on the brink of a win.
With RCB making a comeback of sorts with some quiet overs at the fag end of the innings, KXIP needed 7 off the last 12 deliveries. Known for choking under pressure situations, Punjab held their nerves as Gayle's Windies team mate Nicholas Pooran hit spinner Yuzvendra Chahal for a six off his final delivery.
IPL 2020, RCB vs KXIP: Gayle, KL Rahul's Six-Hitting Competition Lead Kings XI Punjab To A Last-Ball Victory
After the match, the half centurion Gayle said that he was not nervous during the dying stages of the match which went down the wire to the last over as he is the 'Universal boss' and strange things happened in cricket all the time.
“Not really. Come on man, it is the Universe Boss batting, how can I be nervous. I might give you a heart attack, I thought I had it in the bag but stranger things have happened in cricket. It was a good innings, first in IPL and now I can make myself available for 2021. I can get out of the bubble now and go,” he said.