Ruthless Gayle's carnage takes RCB to record win

Bangalore: Chris Gayle on Tuesday smashed the most breathtaking knock in the history of Twenty20 cricket, blasting an incredible 175 off a mere 66 balls, as Royal Challengers Bangalore crushed a hapless Pune Warriors by a record 130 runs in the Pepsi Indian Premier League here.

Gayle hit the fastest century, off just 30 balls, and the highest-ever individual score in a T20 game, surpassing Kolkata Knight Riders' Brendon McCullum, who hit 158 off 73 balls against RCB at this very Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Incidentally, RCB's total of 263 for five was also the highest-ever total in any T20 game.

Chasing a T20 world record target of 264, Pune could not manage more than 133 for nine in the alloted 20 overs, paving the way for Bangalore to post the biggest IPL victory in terms of runs.

Put into bat, it was the 'Gayle Force' that blew away the Pune Warriors as the big-bodied Jamaican once again showed his power-hitting ability, striking a staggering 13 fours and 17 sixes en-route to the fastest and highest-ever T20 score.

154 out of his total runs came in boundaries and off only 30 scoring strokes.

Typically, he brought up his century with a six off Ashoke Dinda, which sailed over the stadium and in the process also damaged the roof.

The carnage started from the second over, bowled by rookie paceman Ishwar Pandey. Playing his first IPL match, Pandey found out what top-level cricket was all about as Gayle hit him for five boundaries taking 21 runs of that over.

Mitchell Marsh and Aaron Finch got even worse treatments as they went for 28 and 29 runs in their respective overs as both were clobbered for four sixes each.

There was minimum fuss as usual in Gayle's batting as he barely had any footwork. It was just stand and deliver as the ball kept on sailing into the stands and there was little that skipper Finch could have done.