In 2018, Chris Gayle was hungry and angry to score runs, reveals KL Rahul

2018 was the renaissance year for Chris Gayle when he discovered a completely new side to his personality, which helped him put the disappointment of 2017 and the subsequent RCB ousting at the back chamber to forge a great partnership with his former RCB partner KL Rahul. Gayle took his own sweet time to get going, but once he did, he was a nightmare for the opposition, something Rashid Khan found out when the Caribbean player collected 41 runs off just 16 balls against him.

"In 2018, Gayle was hungry and angry. We were playing against Sunrisers Hyderabad and he told me that if Rashid Khan comes into the attack, I am going to finish him. I don't like a spinner coming in and staring me down. So Rashid comes into the attack and Chris gets the strike. And he went on to make hundred that day and smashed Rashid all over the park. He had a clearly plan and he was in the zone,” Rahul said during the show ‘Open Nets with Mayank’ on IPL’s official website, reported Times of India.

The duo’s partnership was key to Kings XI Punjab forcing their way towards the top four, which they eventually missed out with a bad second half of the season. However, Rahul was consistent in his approach, scoring 659 runs with an excellent strike rate of 158.41. That involved no less than six half-centuries, something that gave Gayle his downtime to get going. Rahul narrated an interesting story of their partnership when Gayle came out to bat sleepy.

"While batting, we generally try to be in the zone and we have very few conversations. But there has been a couple of times when Gayle looked really sleepy. I would ask him about what time he woke up and he would say ‘just an hour ago’. I understood that even during IPL, he runs on Jamaica time. However, when he walks out into the middle, he is a nightmare for the bowlers,” the India opener said of the West Indies batsman.