Chris Gayle's THIS 1998 performance makes ICC promote upcoming marquee youth tournament

'The Universe Boss' Christopher Henry Gayle may be famous for his outrageous hard-hitting in the shortest format of the game but all of that started back in 1998 when the burly West Indian made a name for himself in the 1998 Under-19 ICC Cricket World Cup. Gayle was the highest scorer of the tournament. Although the Windies could not make it through to the Super League stages, his impact was such that within a year, he broke into the West Indies' national ODI side in 1999. Let us take a look at his journey since the Under-19 World Cup 21 years ago.

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Chris Gayle gives early glimpses of his success in 1998

Gayle played a total of seven matches in that tournament of 1998 and ended up outscoring every other batsman with a tally of 364 runs. In the seven times he batted, Gayle was not out two times. With one hundred, i.e. a fantastic 141* against Bangladesh, and 3 fifties, the Caribbean opener led the batting charts throughout the tournament even though the Windies did not do well that year.

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Chris Gayle: Breakthrough into the national side

Chris Gayle made his international debut in ODIs in 1999 and the Test side in 2000, and although he had a slow start to his international career, he soon started making West Indies records and made his presence felt in world cricket. He went on to play 103 Tests for the Windies in which he made 7214 runs with a top-score of a mammoth 333. He has also scored more than 10000 runs for the island nation in his ODI career and more than 1600 runs in his T20I career. Gayle has 42 international hundreds to his name as well.

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Chris Gayle: T20 dominance

While Gayle was a force to be reckoned with in both ODIs and Tests, his legendary status came about when he started dominating the domestic T20 scene throughout the world. In 2011, Gayle went unsold at the IPL auction but was picked by RCB as a replacement for injured Australian pacer Dirk Nannes in the middle of the season. Since then, he has never looked back. Ahead of the 2020 IPL, Kings XI Punjab have retained Gayle as their main opener alongside KL Rahul for the 2020 season. Gayle has over 13000 runs in T20 cricket with an unparalleled 22 centuries and 966 sixes.

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