Chris Gayle was born Christopher Henry Gayle on September 21, 1979, in Kingston, Jamaica, to a lower middle-class family. He was the fifth of the family’s six children. His parents suffered financially as they raised their children. His boss, Dudley Gayle, was a police officer, and his mother sold peanuts to supplement the family’s income.
Chris’ grandfather was a well-known cricketer, despite his parents’ lack of cricket experience. He used to play club cricket when he was younger. Chris grew more involved in the game as a result of this.
Chris Gayle is a Jamaican cricketer who currently represents the West Indies in international cricket. He was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, and is recognised as one of the game’s most strong ball-hitters in modern limited-over formats. He has a number of records in both T20 and One-Day International cricket (ODIs). Several critics believe him to be the greatest T20 player of all time. Thanks to his quirky and persistent style of play, he is usually considered appropriate for limited-over playing. He does, however, keep some Test cricket records. He is the first player in the world to smash a six from the first ball of a Test match, which he did in 2012. He is one of the four players in Test cricket history to score two triple centuries, and he is also one of the few players to score a double-century in a one-day match. He is also a member of the ‘Kings XI Punjab’ squad in the ‘Indian Premier League.’ He also represents a number of other domestic teams in countries such as Pakistan and Australia.
Childhood and Puberty
Chris Gayle was born Christopher Henry Gayle on September 21, 1979, in Kingston, Jamaica, to a lower middle-class family. He was the fifth of the family’s six children. His parents suffered financially as they raised their children. His boss, Dudley Gayle, was a police officer, and his mother sold peanuts to supplement the family’s income.
Chris’ grandfather was a well-known cricketer, despite his parents’ lack of cricket experience. He used to play club cricket when he was younger. Chris grew more involved in the game as a result of this.
Chris worked as a rag-picker for a time after his family’s financial crisis, despite growing up in a big family and battling hardship. He has even confessed to cheating for a period of time in order to sustain his relatives.
He didn’t do well in school and dedicated much of his time to cricket. He graduated from Jamaica’s “Excelsior High School” and entered the “Lucas Cricket Club,” a local Jamaican cricket club.
Chris believes that his early years with ‘Lucas’ were the most formative of his life, and that those years have made him better grasp the game. By playing in local tournaments, he steadily acquired the interest of the selectors. He debuted for the West Indian youth international team in 1998.
A Career
Chris Gayle made his international debut in 1999, when he was a member of the key West Indian squad. His playing style was well received by the team’s management. Chris became a national phenomenon in July 2001 when he scored 175 runs against Zimbabwe. He also set the record for the longest opening partnership, which lasted 214 runs, with Daren Ganga.
Despite this excellent success, Chris was not considered a regular member of the national team since the century came against a poor Zimbabwean team.
Then came 2002, when he made the most of his chance to play for the national team. He became just the third West Indian cricketer to score 1000 runs in a calendar year by the end of the year, when he scored three centuries in a series against India. As a result, he joined the ranks of legends such as Brian Lara and Sir Vivian Richards.
He was known as a hard-hitting pitcher back then. In a Test match, though, it was not the right way to play. As a result, he was in and out of the national Test team on a daily basis. As he became the first player to score a Test triple-century against South Africa in 2005, he dismissed many of his opponents. Sri Lankan batsman Mahela Jayawardene later broke the record.
Around that point, Chris started to feel dizziness and fatigue on the pitch, causing him to leave the game several times in the centre. He was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect after being admitted to the hospital. Chris underwent heart surgery to resolve the underlying cause of the crisis.
In the 2006 ‘Champions Cup’ tournament, he played extremely well. Chris was named “Player of the Tournament” despite his team losing in the finals to Australia. He won the trophy after making 474 runs and taking eight wickets in the tournament. However, his performance at the following year’s ‘World Cup’ was below average.
Chris set the first record for becoming the highest-scoring player in the 2007 ‘World Twenty20,’ scoring 117 runs against South Africa. He has made headlines by becoming the first international cricketer to score hundreds in all three formats.
Chris’ status as a hard-hitter made him one of the better candidates for the 2008 version of the “Indian Premier League.” Chris was bought by the ‘Kolkata Knight Horses,’ which is owned by Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, at the auctions in April 2008. Due to a current series against Sri Lanka, Chris missed the first few games of the tournament.
Chris became the fifth-fastest century-scorer in a Test match in December 2009, during a match against Australia. To get to 100 runs, he needed 70 balls. In November 2010, he set a new milestone by becoming the fourth player in Test cricket history to score two triple-centuries, following Donald Bradman, Brian Lara, and Virender Sehwag.
Chris became the first cricketer to score a six off the first ball in a Test match against Bangladesh in November 2012. He became the fourth player in the world to score a double-hundred in an ODI in February 2015.
Chris’ expertise is in the game’s limited-formats. He has played 50 international T20 matches so far, accumulating 1519 runs at a 35.33 run average. In 96 matches, he has scored 3563 ‘IPL’ runs at an average of 42.93 runs per match. He has six ‘IPL’ centuries to his credit, rendering him one of the players with the most centuries in the competition.
He has also made an impression in the longer formats of the game, having featured in 284 One-Day Internationals for the West Indies and scoring 9727 runs at an average of 37.11. He has scored 7214 runs in 103 Test matches, an average of 42.18 runs per inning.
Personal Life
Chris Gayle has been married to Natasha Berridge for a long time. Chris and Krisallyna have a daughter named Krisallyna, but Chris has no intentions to marry. Chris shared the details of his daughter’s birth on Instagram in April 2016.
‘Six Machine: I Don’t Like Cricket… I Love It,’ is the title of Chris’ autobiography.
He is a die-hard football fan who cheers on ‘Real Madrid.’ Cristiano Ronaldo is his favourite footballer.