Gayle, Kohli plunder Gujarat with 122-run display

Chris Gayle silenced his critics by plundering a 38-ball 77, and he joined forces with his captain Virat Kohli for a mammoth 122-run opening stand that proved enough to beat a struggling Gujarat unit by 21 runs in the Indian Twenty20 competition at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Rajkot on Tuesday.

Bangalore, with just one win from five, before Tuesday's match required to get back to winning ways. But in form AB de Villiers and Samuel Badree's absence from the side due to injury was a cause for concern. Their absence made way for Gayle, who had not made a half-century in 17 T20 innings. His strike rate among openers who had faced a minimum of 50 deliveries prior to this game was the slowest. Kohli led the way early, on a sluggish Rajkot surface, and smashed five fours from the first three overs. Gayle, until then, was content to give him the strike. He waited for the bowlers to err and capitalized in the fourth over, depositing a Basil Thampi full toss for a six, just two balls after he completed 10,000 runs in T20s.

It was the start of what would turn out to be an exhibition of T20 batting as Gayle switched gears and spared no bowler. Gayle clobbered two sixes and two fours off Ravindra Jadeja in the eighth over, and then two more sixes off his West Indies team mate, Dwayne Smith in the 11th. While Kohli scored in fours, Gayle did so in sixes. He finally fell in the 13th over after hitting seven sixes and five fours, while Kohli departed three-overs later, for a 50-ball 64, which included seven fours and one six. The duo scored at 9.63 runs in the 12.4 overs they batted together, to help Bangalore post 213.