Monsoon in  Mid-Summer ! Still the same force..

Chris Gayle announced himself in Pepsi IPL 2015 with a 56-ball 96 that powered the Royal Challengers Bangalore to a 3-wicket win over the defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders. Set to chase 178, Gayle took his time to get going before exploding at the back end of the chase and took his team past the finish line with six balls to spare. RCB’s victory also meant that KKR’s 10-match winning streak was brought to a halt.

KKR must have seen the ominous signs with Gayle applying himself. The Jamaican wasn’t too ruffled despite wickets falling at the other end. Virat Kohli perished for 13, AB de Villiers made 28 from 13 balls, and poor shot selection caused the downfall of the rest of the batsmen.

But Gayle waited for the right moment and for the right bowler to cut loose. On a day when he breached the 7000 runs mark in T20 cricket, the RCB opener picked on the 17th and 18th overs bowled by Shakib-al-Hasan and Sunil Narine respectively to force the pace; he hit Shakib for successive sixes and then picked boundaries off successive Narine deliveries.

One stroke away from what would have been his 14th T20 century and with his team on the brink of a win, Gayle was late in calling for a second run and was beaten by a throw from Manish Pandey. He was dismissed for 96 in an innings studded with seven boundaries and as many sixes – most of which would have cleared the fence of even the biggest grounds in the world.

                                  

Kolkata Knight Riders 177-6 in 20.0 Overs (Gautam Gambhir 58, Andre Russell 41*) beatRoyal Challengers Bangalore (Chris Gayle 96, Yusuf Pathan 2-40)