Gayle smashes T20 records in BPL final

West Indies star Chris Gayle toppled several records on his way to a match winning performance for Rangpur Riders in the final of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) cricket tournament here on Tuesday.

Gayle smashed 18 sixes -- the most in a Twenty20 innings -- on his way to an unbeaten 146 runs off just 69 balls as Rangpur defeated Dhaka Dynamites by 57 runs.

The West Indies icon broke his own previous record of 17 sixes in an innings which he had set against Pune Warriors while representing Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Gayle now has 801 T20 sixes to his name.

The 38-year-old from Jamaica also crossed the landmark of 100 sixes in the BPL.

Gayle, who hit five boundaries during his innings, also became the first batsman to cross the milestone of 11,000 runs in T20 cricket. Veteran New Zealand star Brendon McCullum is next on the list with 8,526 runs in 309 T20 matches.

Gayle also posted the highest individual score in a final of a T20 league and is the only batsman to post 20 centuries in the shortest format of the game.

Gayle's power-packed hitting saw the visitors posting 206/1 in their 20 overs before restricting Dhaka to 149/9.

Gayle did get a lucky break while on 22 as he was dropped at extra cover by Dhaka captain Shakib al Hasan in the third ball of the sixth over.

Gayle had miscued an attempted drive off the bowling of off-spinner Mosaddek Hossain only to see the ball balloon to extra cover. He immediately made Shakib regret his error by hitting the very next ball for a six over the long-on fence.

The swashbuckling left-hander brought up his half-century off 33 balls by hitting pacer Khaled Ahmed for a couple of boundaries and a six.

--IANS

ajb/bg