Chris Gayle Named Greatest T20 Player
Chris Gayle has been named the greatest T20 player in a vote conducted by ESPNcricinfo staffers with Lasith Malinga of Sri Lanka finishing a close second.
The ‘Universe Boss’ Chris Gayle has turned out for numerous T 20 teams across the world in countries such as; Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the UAE, the USA, the West Indies, and Zimbabwe.
He was the first player to reach 10,000 runs in the format. He has scored 22 centuries, 14 more than those in second place. His best score in the format is 175, which is the highest T20 score. He has also hit the fastest hundred.
The exercise started with a shortlist of 32 players, and those with more votes in the one-on-one match-ups progressed to the next stage. The popularity and impact of West Indian stars in T20s was reflected in ESPNcricinfo bracket: three of the four semi-finalists – Andre Russell and Sunil Narine being the others – and five of the eight quarter-finalists are from the region.
ESPNcricinfo readers’ bracket ended with Russell up against Rohit Sharma of India, who finished as the winner.
Gayle and Malinga were the other semi-finalists in the readers’ bracket. Besides Gayle, Malinga, and Russell, Dwayne Bravo and AB de Villiers of South Africa were the others to feature in the quarter-finals in both the staff and readers’ brackets.
