West Indian talisman Chris Gayle smashed 79 off 47 balls to lead Kings XI Punjab to 184 for 4 in opening their encounter of IPL 2019 against Rajasthan Royals at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur on Monday and in the process became the fastest and only the second overseas cricketer to get to 4000 runs in IPL.
Former Australian vice-captain David Warner was the first overseas cricketer to get to the milestone. He had done it in IPL 2017. Gayle, however beat Warner to become the fastest cricketer to reach 4000 IPL runs. Gayle achieved the feat in 112 innings, whereas Warner had taken an innings more to do the same.
Gayle, who needed six runs for the record, scampered through for a quick single to complete the record after Royals captain Ajinkya Rahane won the toss and decided to send KXIP in. KXIP lost Rahul in the very first over of the match but Gayle steadied the ship. The Universe Boss started slowly but gathered pass after the powerplay.
Gayle's first six came off Krishnapa Gowtham's bowling in the 9th over but he really stepped on the gas in the 12th over when he smashed Jaydev Unadkat for three fours and a six. The next victim of Gayle's onslaught was Ben Stokes, who was hit for a hat-trick of fours and a six in the 16th over. Stokes, however, had the last laugh when he dismissed Gayle in the last ball of that over thanks to a brilliant catch in deep mid-wicket boundary by Rahul Tripathi.
Gayle currently stands at No. 9 in the highest-run scorers' chart of IPL, which is led by Suresh Raina. Raina incidentally became the first man to score 5000 IPL runs during the IPL 2019 curtain raiser against Royal Challengers Bangalore, which CSK won comprehensively by 7 wickets.
Apart from Gayle, Sures Raina (5004), Virat Kohli (4954), Rohit Sharma (4507), Gautam Gambhir (4217), Robin Uthappa (4164), Shikhar Dhawan (4101), David Warner (4099) and MS Dhoni(4016) have more than 4000 IPL runs.
Apart from Gayle, young Sarfaraz Khan played a crucial knock of 46* off 29 balls.