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You're just in your zone: Faf du Plessis on Chris Gayle's innings

Du Plessis took one ball less than Gayle's 47 on Wednesday en route to his 56-ball 119 against the West Indies in Johannesburg in January 2015.

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Only two players have scored faster T20 International hundreds than Chris Gayle. Both are South Africans and one of them is Faf du Plessis, the current Proteas skipper in the shortest format.

Du Plessis took one ball less than Gayle's 47 on Wednesday en route to his 56-ball 119 against the West Indies in Johannesburg in January 2015.

While both du Plessis and Gayle had equal number of boundary shots in their knocks – 16 – the South African had 11 fours and five sixes while it was the other way round for the Jamaican – 11 sixes and five fours.

What happens to batsman who goes about their business like Gayle did against England's inexperienced bowlers, or like du Plessis did against Darren Sammy and Co 14 months ago?

Du Plessis threw some insights into the mind of the batsmen on rampage. "It's just on the day. You hit a couple of boundaries, you hit a couple of balls in the middle of your bat and all of a sudden you look up and you haven't faced a lot of balls and everything is going your way," the 31-year-old right-hander said.

"Obviously for Chris Gayle, that happens more often than it does for us normal people. The nice thing for us is that we've got a few guys who can do that. You just need one or two guys from the team on the day to do something like that and the potential to score a hundred is there. Obviously, when one guy scores a hundred, it makes very hard for the opposition to try and stay in the game."

Du Plessis added that players who are in a mood to destroy the opposition enter a different zone.

"Yes, you do," he said when asked if they cut off from everything else when playing such a knock. "If you speak to sportsmen all around the world, they will tell you that when you are playing those genius innings, you completely go out of the thinking mode and you are just into your zone. They compare to driving to a place, you don't know how you got there but you have just got there. The nice thing is this (Wankhede) wicket gives you that opportunity. Hopefully, we can be on that zone tomorrow (Friday against England)."

For the record, Richard Levi, the left-handed South African batsman, has the record for the fastest T20I hundred off 45 balls against New Zealand in Hamilton in February 2012.

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