The 39-year-old played his first international match in 1999. He made his debut on 11 September 1999 in Toronto against India.
West Indies' Chris Gayle acknowledges the crowd at the end of play during the 2019 Cricket World Cup group stage match between Afghanistan and West Indies at Headingley in Leeds, northern England, on July 4, 2019. - West Indies beat Afghanistan by 23 runs. (Photo by Dibyangshu Sarkar / AFP)
The 42nd match of ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 was played between West Indies and Afghanistan. West Indies managed to win this match by 23 runs. Notably, this was the last World Cup outing for West Indian swashbuckling opener Christopher Henry Gayle.
In the ongoing Cricket World Cup, this was the last match for the West Indies and with this Gayle’s World Cup career also came to an end.
The next World Cup is scheduled to be played in 2023 and by then Gayle would have hung his boots.
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During the course of the tournament, Chris had announced his retirement post the Test and One Day International series against India.
Gayle featured in five World Cups
Playing international cricket for a couple of decades now, Chris has featured in as many as five cricket World Cups. Gayle played his first World Cup in 2003.
To put things into perspective, Former Indian captain MS Dhoni was still working as a Ticket Collector in the Indian Railways back then and featured in First Class cricket regularly.
When MS made his International debut, Chris already had five years of International exposure till then.
Post 2003, Gayle featured in World Cups in 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019.
Most sixes in World Cup Cricket
Known as the “Universe Boss” in World Cricket, Chris has the most number of sixes in World Cup history. Gayle has a total of 49 sixes to his credit in 5 World Cups – the most by any batsman in the history of the tournament.
In his last outing against Afghanistan, he had a chance to take the tally to 50 but failed.
Has a World Cup double hundred against his name
In the history of Cricket World Cup, only two batsmen have been able to score double hundreds. One among them is Chris Gayle. The southpaw played an innings of 215 runs against Zimbabwe in Canberra.
At the top of this list is New Zealand’s Martin Guptill who scored an unbeaten 237 runs which is the highest individual score in World Cup Cricket.
International Career
The 39-year-old played his first international match in 1999. He made his debut on 11 September 1999 in Toronto against India. Chris has 10,393 runs in his ODI career in 298 matches. This includes 25 hundreds and another 53 half-centuries.
In 103 Tests, Gayle also has another 7214 runs to his name. This includes 15 hundreds and 37 half centuries.
Gayle’s highest individual score in Test match cricket is 333 runs.
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