Gayle ton demolishes Punjab

A spectacular all-round effort by Chris Gayle, including a brutal 46-ball hundred, saw Royal Challengers Bangalore post its most imperious win of the IPL yet, tossing aside Kings XI Punjab here on Friday.

The Jamaican toyed with the Punjab bowling, scoring 107 (49b, 10x4, 9x6) as RCB rattled up 205 in 20 overs, its highest score of the season, before restricting Kings XI to 120 to record an 85-run victory.

Gayle returned after the interval to torment Punjab again, taking three wickets for 21, as the home side, also aided by S. Arvind's splendid four for 14 and a ruthless fielding performance, leapt to fourth on the table. The defeat was Kings XI Punjab's fourth in a row, leaving it rooted to the second-from-bottom spot. With his knock, Man-of-the-Match Gayle became the first player to score two centuries in the IPL since its inception.

Disastrous start

Punjab could not have imagined a more disastrous start to its innings, with skipper Adam Gilchrist run out chancing a single off the first ball. Abhishek Nayar was out in the next over, caught at square-leg off Arvind.

Paul Valthaty gave Punjab a glimmer of hope, scoring three successive boundaries off Zaheer Khan's second over, but once he fell, becoming Gayle's first victim, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

At 67 for seven after 11 overs, Punjab looked headed for a double-digit score, but the Ryans — McLaren and Harris — saw it past the three-figure mark.

Earlier, Adam Gilchrist inserted the host, and on the evidence of the first three overs, justifiably so. But, there was little he could do when Gayle roused himself out of his apparent slumber. If Harris opened with a maiden, watching Gayle struggle to get bat on ball, he bled 21 in his second over. Tillakaratne Dilshan fell in the fifth over, attempting to hit McLaren over the top.

Gayle waded into Praveen Kumar next, hitting the first ball of the eighth over — the bowler's fourth — onto the roof of the stadium. A total of 22 runs — including another six and two fours — came off the over, scarring Praveen's bowling figures, which had until then read 3-0-15-0.

Gayle's fifty came in the same over, off 28 balls. With Virat Kohli happily playing second fiddle, RCB motored on reaching 103 for one at the halfway stage. The pair spanked a hapless Love Ablish for 19 runs in the 11th over, with Gayle striking boundaries off the last three balls. He brought up his hundred in the 14th over, cudgelling a McLaren full-toss straight down the ground for four.

Gayle eventually holed out to Harris at deep mid-wicket off Piyush Chawla, a ball after he had been dropped by Sunny Singh, bringing the curtains down on a 111-run stand (59b) for the second wicket. He hit sixes off all the six bowlers Punjab used.