Gayle is coming.
Chris Gayle’s stock might have fallen, but the spirit is as willing as ever. For a while, it looked like he was going to miss out on the IPL all together after going unsold twice before being snapped up by Kings XI Punjab for the 2018 edition of the Indian Premier League.
And it appears the Caribbean World Boss is preparing hard for his Punjab sojourn by immersing himself in the local culture. Ahead of the upcoming IPL season, Gayle put up a video of himself shaking a leg to some Bhangra music. He wrote on Instagram: “#KingGayle coming, India. #LivePunjabiPlayPunjabi #Kings.”
Say what you will, an IPL tournament without Chris Gayle would feel incomplete.
Here's Gayle and Kohli shaking a leg back in the day, and even Vijay Mallya's smiling:
Recently, Chris Gayle joined Hashim Amla and Sachin Tendulkar as only the third batsman in the history of ODI cricket to score centuries against 11 different countries, as the West Indies defeated the UAE by 60 runs in their opening group A fixture of the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier in Harare.
Gayle smashed 11 sixes and seven fours in an electrifying 91-ball 123 and young Shimron Hetymer belted 14 fours and four sixes in a whirlwind 93-ball 127 as the two-time world champions posted 357 for four after electing to bat first.
Meanwhile, Sehwag thinks Gayle and Sehwag can win a game or two for the KXIP in the upcoming IPL.
Gayle and Yuvraj were both bought at a base price of Rs 2 crore by the Preity Zinta co-owned franchise. The Jamaican dasher went unsold twice before being lapped by up KXIP while none of the other teams bid for Yuvraj, clearly indicating that they are no longer considered as match-winners.
"It is great that they have come to us at their base price. It is surely a bargain. Who knows if there were more bidders, they could have gone as high as $1 million. They are big names and match winners, even if they win two-three games for us, we would get the return on investment," said Sehwag during an interview.
While Yuvraj is a certain starter in the XI, at least for the first few games, Gayle is not as Mayank Agarwal and Aaron Finch are expected to form a potent opening combination. For now, Gayle is only certain to play the first game as Finch will be unavailable due to his wedding back in Australia.
"Finch is not available for the first game so most likely Gayle will play in his place. So the opening game is not a problem but we have a big headache after that. We will all sit together and take the call. I believe Finch is such a player that he can play anywhere," said Sehwag.
FULL SQUADS FOR IPL 2018
Royal Challengers Bangalore (Total money spent: Rs 79.85cr)
Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Brendon McCullum, Tim Southee, Chris Woakes, Parthiv Patel, Umesh Yadav, Quinton de Kock, Manan Vohra, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Moeen Ali, Sarfaraz Khan, Kulwant Khejroliya, Mandeep Singh, Aniruddha Joshi, Pavan Deshpande, Yuzvendra Chahal, Aniket Choudhary, Murugan Ashwin, Pawan Negi, Colin de Grandhomme, Navdeep Saini, Washington Sundar, Mohammed Siraj
Kolkata Knight Riders (Total money spent: Rs 80cr)
Piyush Chawla, Robin Uthappa, Shubman Gill, Mitchell Johnson, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Dinesh Karthik, Mitchell Starc, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi, Javon Searles, Ishank Jaggi, Cameron Delport, Chris Lynn, R Vinay Kumar, Apoorv Wankhade, Kuldeep Yadav, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh
Chennai Super Kings (Total money spent: Rs 73.5cr)
MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Shane Watson, Murali Vijay, Kedar Jadhav, Harbhajan Singh, Faf du Plessis, Dwayne Bravo, Lungi Ngidi, Sam Billings, Karn Sharma, Ambati Rayudu, Mark Wood, Jagadeesan Narayan, Imran Tahir, Deepak Chahar, Shardul Thakur, Mitchell Santner, Dhruv Shorey, Kshitiz Sharma, Chaitanya Bishnoi, Monu Kumar, Kanishk Seth, Asif KM
Delhi Daredevils (Total money spent: Rs 78.4cr)
Gautam Gambhir, Jason Roy, Glenn Maxwell, Mohammed Shami, Prithvi Shaw, Trent Boult, Amit Mishra, Shahbaz Nadeem, Naman Ojha, Abhishek Sharma, Manjot Kalra, Colin Munro, Harshal Patel, Rahul Tewatia, Jayant Yadav, Vijay Shankar, Daniel Christian, Gurkeerat Singh, Kagiso Rabada, Avesh Khan, Sayan Ghosh, Sandeep Lamichhane, Chris Morris, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant
Mumbai Indians (Total money spent: Rs 79.35cr)
Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Kieron Pollard, JP Duminy, Krunal Pandya, Pat Cummins, Rahul Chahar, Anukul Roy, Tajinder Singh, Mayank Markande, Mohsin Khan, Ben Cutting, Jason Behrendorff, Pradeep Sangwan, Mustafizur Rahman, Aditya Tare, Saurabh Tiwary, Siddhesh Lad, Evin Lewis, Suryakumar Yadav, Akila Dananjaya, Ishan Kishan, Sharad Lumba, MD Nidheesh
Rajasthan Royals (Total money spent: Rs 78.35cr)
Ajinkya Rahane, Steven Smith, Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, Sanju Samson, Aryaman Birla, Midhun S, Stuart Binny, Dhawal Kulkarni, D’Arcy Short, Ben Laughlin, Jatin Saxena, Shreyas Gopal, Anureet Singh, Jaydev Unadkat, Ankit Sharma, Gowtham Krishnappa, Rahul Tripathi, Prashant Chopra, Dushmantha Chameera, Jofra Archer, Zahir Khan, Mahipal Lomror
Kings XI Punjab (Total money spent: Rs 79.9cr)
Yuvraj Singh, R Ashwin, Karun Nair, KL Rahul, Chris Gayle, Aaron Finch, David Miller, Mayank Agarwal, Mujeeb Zadran, Manzoor Dar, Marcus Stoinis, Pardeep Sahu, Manoj Tiwary, Andrew Tye, Akshdeep Nath, Mohit Sharma, Barinder Sran, Ankit Rajpoot, Ben Dwarshuis, Mayank Dagar, Axar Patel
Sunrisers Hyderabad (Total money spent: Rs 79.35cr)
Bhuvneshwar Kumar, David Warner, Kane Williamson, Wriddhiman Saha, Shikhar Dhawan, Yusuf Pathan, Shakib Al Hasan, Chris Jordan, Manish Pandey, Shreevats Goswami, Siddarth Kaul, Bipul Sharma, Sachin Baby, Sandeep Sharma, Carlos Brathwaite, Mehdi Hasan, Deepak Hooda, Billy Stanlake, Ricky Bhui, Basil Thampi, Tanmay Agarwal, Rashid Khan, Natarajan, Syed Khaleel Ahmed, Mohammad Nabi
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