MUMBAI: Explosive West Indies opener Chris Gayle smashed a century off 30 balls in an Indian Premier League match yesterday and finished on 175 not out, the highest ever Twenty20 innings.
Playing for the Bangalore franchise, Gayle blasted 17 sixes and 13 fours off just 66 deliveries to take his team to a mammoth total of 263 for five wickets. Pune captain Aaron Finch watched helplessly as the 33-year-old Jamaican swatted the bowlers to all parts of the ground and some of the sixes flew out of the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Gayle’s 30-ball century eclipsed the 34-ball hundred scored by Australian Andrew Symonds for Kent against Middlesex in 2004. The left-hander also posted the highest individual score in a Twenty20 game, going past New Zealander Brendon McCullum’s 158.
Flamboyant Pakistani Shahid Afridi holds the record of fastest international century in the 50-over format (37 balls) and South African Richard Richard Levi (45 balls) has made the quickest international T20 hundred.
ICC urges Butt, Asif to apologize for spot-fixing
Meantime, former Pakistan captain Salman Butt and his teammate Mohammad Asif should move on with their lives by “apologizing” for the spot-fixing that resulted in their suspensions, the International Cricket Council chief executive said yesterday.
They were found guilty in an English criminal trial of arranging to bowl no-balls for betting scams during an August 2010 test at Lord’s. Butt lost his appeal last week in the Court of Arbitration for Sport to reduce a 10-year ban while Asif failed to overturn a seven-year suspension. Both will serve five years with the remainder suspended.
“The guilt of these men has now been established on three separate occasions, in three separate sets of proceedings and in three separate forums,” the ICC’s David Richardson said.
“In addition to the CAS finding Mr. Asif a party to the conspiracy to act corruptly, it is also pleasing to note from the decisions that Mr. Butt acknowledged his part in the fix before the CAS panel,” he said. “The time has now come for them to stop misleading the members of the public, especially the supporters of the Pakistan cricket team, and to publicly accept their parts in this corrupt conspiracy.” Richardson also urges them to “come clean” with ICC anti-corruption officials.
“I am certain that both Mr. Butt and Mr. Asif have information that can be of great assistance to the (Anti-Corruption and Security Unit) and its ongoing fight against corruption in cricket,” he said. “I would, therefore, urge them, without any further delay, to start the process of rebuilding their lives and reputations by apologizing for their actions and meeting with ICC’s anti-corruption officials to come clean about what actually happened.” Pakistan cricket has been constantly hit by fixing charges in recent times, and this month the Pakistan Cricket Board banned international umpire Nadeem Ghauri for four years over corruption charges.
