In Part Two of CricViz’s T20 Legends series we examine why and how Chris Gayle is one of T20’s greatest players.

T20 BEHEMOTH

The central aspect of Chris Gayle’s greatness is his sheer weight of runs across an epic career that now spans almost fifteen years. In that period Gayle has scored an astonishing 13,296 runs - the most by any player in the history of the format by more than 3000 runs, making him around 30% clear of the next best player.

Gayle has been a monolithic presence in the first era of T20 cricket. As of April 2020 Gayle has played for 26 different T20 teams and has scored at least 1000 runs in every continent he has played in except Europe where he is averaging almost 50 runs per dismissal.

RARE COMBINATION

Gayle’s gargantuan run-tally is the product of his ability to combine very high scoring rates with excellent wicket-preservation. This is a rare trait among T20 batsmen, simply because higher scoring rates are the product of greater aggression which typically compromise a batsman’s ability to protect his wicket. Gayle - to a greater extent than any player in history has managed to do this very effectively.

The scatter graph below plots average balls per innings against batting strike rate - this combines the two measures of run scoring and wicket preservation on one chart and clearly shows how Gayle is one of the format’s most extreme outliers, returning better than average records by both measures. Indeed, no batsmen with a higher balls per wicket than Gayle’s 26.0 has a higher strike rate than Gayle’s 146.94. Maintaining his scoring rate and dismissal rate at the same time has never been done by any other player.

POWER

The defining characteristic of Gayle’s batting and the primary reason why he has had such an astonishing career is quite simply power. Gayle—standing at 6 foot 5 inches and weighing around 100 kg—is a huge man and possesses great muscular strength. These raw natural attributes have been combined with exceptional hand-eye coordination and big, powerful bats to produce a monstrous hitter.

CricViz’s Power Rating is a unique measure which evaluates a batsman’s power by analysing shot-type data and assessing a player’s ability to clear the ropes when they have made good contact with the ball. By this measure Gayle is the most powerful batsman in the CricViz database and is 15% more powerful than the next most powerful player.

TIMING

In addition to Gayle’s raw power he also has exceptional hand-eye coordination, making him a brilliant timer of the ball. Early videos of Gayle show him as a tall but lean and rangy young man before he bulked out in the mid-2000s. This iteration of Gayle relied less on power and more on timing and that natural skill has endured despite his huge growth in strength. CricViz’s Timing Rating evaluates the contact made by the batsman given the shot played and the bowler-type bowling. By this measure Gayle is the 13th best timer of the ball in the world: not as elite as his Power rating but still among the world’s best.

BOUNDARY-HITTER

Gayle’s enormous power and excellent timing combines to make him an astonishingly effective boundary-hitter, and it is this - more than anything else - that defines his batting. Across his career he has hit 978 sixes and 1024 fours - both are world records.

In T20 history only Kieron Pollard has scored more runs in total than Gayle has in boundaries alone. This huge tally is of course partly a consequence of Gayle’s longevity. His boundary-hitting is more effectively illustrated by the rate at which he hits fours and, more specifically, sixes. Gayle’s ball per boundary is comfortably better than the global average and his balls per six is the third best in T20 history - only behind Andre Russell and Seekuge Prasanna, both of whom bat towards the end of the innings and are emboldened to take more risks as a result.

Gayle’s huge power, timing and his boundary-finding ability has translated into astonishing attacking effectiveness. Across his career his strike rate with attacking shots of 228.30 is the highest of any player in the history of the format with a minimum of 1000 runs scored.

Gayle is an attacking sensation and this is the cornerstone of his method and extraordinary dominance in the T20 format.