IN SHORT: Chris Gayle smashes 146* in final; Rangpur Riders crowned champions of BPL 5!
It had been a very interesting and well fought BPL 2017 thus far, but very unfortunately, I can’t say the same about this grand finale. The fifth season of the Bangladesh Premier League is now done and dusted, and the Rangpur Riders have secured their first ever BPL title!
Dhaka Dynamites were the defending champions coming into this tournament, and they were also clear favourites, having won 3 of the 4 previous editions of the BPL T20. They won 7 out of 12 Round Robin games, finishing second on the league table, while Rangpur Riders won 6 games and finished 4th on the table.
Universe Boss Strikes!
Chris Gayle already had a pretty good season coming into this final match, having scored a century just a couple of games back. However, that wasn’t the last time we would get to witness a Gaylestorm in Bangladesh this year. He made sure the fans had something to remember him by, until he returns next season.
Dhaka won the toss and captain Shakib al Hasan elected to field first. He would’ve thoroughly enjoyed this decision at first, dismissing Johnson Charles in the 2nd over of the game; Charles also has a century in this season. However, in walked a duo consisting of Chris Gayle and Brendon McCullum. The rest was all history.
They put up a whopping unbeaten partnership of 201*, and ensured that Rangpur took the cup home, even though they began pretty slowly. With less than 60 on the board in 9 overs, not many would think that Rangpur would manage 206 in their 20 overs.
While many were saying that Gayle is past his prime, we at Read Scoops still love the man and still believed he could produce such a magical innings at such important stages of tournaments. He did what he has done countless times in his long career – silenced the critics with his bat.
Here are some Gayle appreciation tweets:
Chris Gayle in his last 24 balls
6,6,6,6,0,1,1,0,6,0,1,1,0,6,6,6,6,0,4,0,6,6,0,6
80 Runs
12 Sixes— Broken Cricket (@BrokenCricket) December 12, 2017
Chris Gayle – The king of T20 Cricket. pic.twitter.com/JtXYvUGsFd
— CricTracker (@Cricketracker) December 12, 2017
Highest score in a T20 tournament Final
146* – Chris Gayle ?
115* – Saha
109* – Raina
106 – Hodge#BPL2017 #BPL2017Final #BPLFinal— Cric Stat (@Cric_Stat) December 12, 2017
So with just 2 months to go for the IPL auction, @henrygayle gets his mojo back! Two unbeaten tons in three games at the BPL.#BPLFinal #Gayle #BPL2017Final
— Aniket Dass (@aniket_dass) December 12, 2017
A Gaylestorm has hit the @Official_BPLT20! What an innings from @henrygayle in the #BPL Final! pic.twitter.com/ypnea98h5S
— ICC (@ICC) December 12, 2017
Records broken during this innings:
- Rangpur – highest team score in a T20 final.
- Gayle – most sixes in a game (18 – beating his own record).
- Gayle – first to 11,000 T20 runs.
- Gayle/McCullum – highest partnership in a T20 competition final.
- Gayle – first batsman to 20 T20 centuries.
- Gayle – first batsman to 100 BPL sixes.
- Gayle – highest individual score in a T20 final.
The towering left hander now has 819 career T20 sixes and it’s going to take years or decades for any other world batsman to reach anywhere near that tally. Do I really need to talk about the second half of the game? For thos who are interested, read on.
Dhaka then had a horrible start to their batting innings, losing Mehedi Maruf & Joe Denly for ducks, and being reduced to 1-2 early in their innings. Losing the all-important wicket of Kieron Pollard a 29/4 didn’t help their cause either, and defeat was inevitable.
Gayle also ended the tournament with 485 runs – almost 100 more than anyone else in the tournament. He scored 2 fifties, 2 hundreds, and ended with an average of 53+. What a player!
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