MUMBAI: The Caribbean giant known for his flamboyant hitting of the cricket ball Christopher Henry Gayle has scored the first double century in the history of World Cup cricket. The southpaw hammered Zimbabwe all over the park in Canberra to score 215 of just 147 balls with the help of 16 sixes and 10 fours.
After achieving the milestone the Jamican told Star Sports, “Getting a bit of cramps, feeling a bit tired. We still have 50 overs to get through. I didn’t want to be out with the first ball. I said “you can’t be serious?” I just want to thank god for this knock. I was under pressure to score runs, and I kept getting messages from twitter and on my cell phone. I have never felt this kind of pressure, but in the end, I am sure I gave them something to talk about. It was a bit slow at the start, not to mention keeping it low. I just tried to take the bull by the horns and hang out there and try and build an innings. After a while I was able to pick a bowler to target and then, in the end, I was out off the last ball (chuckles). A lot of time people don’t know what you are going through as I had some issues with injuries. I am also not getting any younger so age is definitely catching up on me. Overall I am really happy, and I just want to try and build on this as much as possible. Want to build on this momentum and move ahead as we look towards the South Africa game. It was a bit easier to bat later on. I am very happy to get this first double hundred and ever since Rohit got two, I have been hounded to get one as well.”
He was well accompanied by Marlon Samuels who scored undefeated 133 runs. The right hand – left hand partnership yielded West Indies 372 runs.
The milestones achieved in the match were:
· Chris Gayle became the first cricketer to score a double century in World Cup history.
· He is also the first Non – Indian to score a double century. Sachin Teldulkar, Virender Sehwag, Rohit Sharma were the only batsmen to reach the milestone before.
· The 372 runs partnership between Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels broke Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid’s 318 runs partnership record to take the pole position in World Cup cricket.
· The Gayle – Samuels partnership (372) also broke Sachin – Dravid’s (331) to register highest partnership in One Day International cricket for any wickets.
· Gayle scored 16 mammoth sixes to equal the record of most sixes in an innings. He shares the record with South African AB de Villiers.
