Chris Gayle slams IPL record 175* for RCB vs PWI on Apr 23, 2013; watch video

It had been two years since Chris Gayle had debuted for the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the West Indian began his journey towards becoming a bonafide T20 superstar. He scored two hundreds in IPL 2011 and one in IPL 2012, but what he did on April 23, 2013 is likely to never be repeated in the history of the game. Thursday marked the 7th anniversary of Chris Gayle scoring an outlandish 175* against the erstwhile Pune Warriors India. Let us have a look back at the greatest T20 innings of all time. 

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Chris Gayle 175: Chris Gayle decides to break all T20 records, Gaylestorm hits Bengaluru

The Royal Challengers Bangalore were hosting the Pune Warriors India during Match 31 of IPL 2013. A slight rain delay took place but the rain subsided soon enough for play to start. Aaron Finch won the toss for the Warriors and chose to bowl first and little did he know how costly would that decision turn out to be.

Tilakaratne Dilshan opened the batting for RCB with Chris Gayle and Pune managed to keep the first over calm by only giving away 3 runs. The second over from Ishwar Pandey was when Chris Gayle decided that he was going to accelerate. That over went for 21 runs and Gayle never looked back. In the fifth over, he hit Mitchell Marsh for 28 runs and brought up his fifty in 17 balls. With this, he equalled Adam Gilchrist's record for the then-fastest IPL fifty but Gayle was not done yet.

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Chris Gayle 175: How many sixes are too many sixes?

In the seventh over, Gayle smashed Ali Murtaza for 17 runs. Gayle's spectacular smashing of the ball forced PWI captain Aaron Finch to try his hand at bowling himself. Gayle made Finch regret as he smashed the Australian for 29 runs in the eighth over of the innings.

Gayle was on 96 off 29 balls in the ninth over when he was facing a free hit from Ashok Dinda. Dinda bowled a full toss and Gayle launched it into orbit. The Chinnaswamy was filled with elation as Chris Gayle had just set an outlandish world record for the fastest century in T20 cricket. Chris Gayle continued to smash the PWI bowlers through the remaining innings and ended up breaking Brendon McCullum's record for the highest score in T20 and IPL history.

Gayle ended with 175* and RCB got themselves to 263, the highest team total in the history of the IPL. PWI were nowhere close in their reply and the team lost the match by 130 runs. Here are the highlights of the historic Chris Gayle 175 innings, that included 17 massive sixes.

(Video courtesy: BCCI)

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RCB were not able to qualify for the playoffs in the IPL 2013 and ended up fifth. Chris Gayle went on to play for the team till 2017 and was then released. In 2018, he was picked up by the KXIP and has continued to play for the team.

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