IPL 2020

What if Chris Gayle walks into the KXIP Playing XI now?

Yasho Amonkar KXIP

Kings XI Punjab have enjoyed a great start to the ongoing IPL season. They narrowly lost to league leaders Delhi Capitals in their season opener before ing a massive win over Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Their bowling department has been among the wickets, and their Indian opening duo of KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal look to be in sublime form as well. If there is one issue in this team, it is the lack of runs from Nicholas Pooran and Glenn Maxwell.

Name	Innings	Runs	Balls faced	Average	Strike rate
Pooran	2	17	21	8.5	80.95
Maxwell	2	6	10	3	60

Pooran and Maxwell’s numbers this season

The player who is being left on the bench to accommodate these two players is Chris Gayle. Chris Gayle maybe 40 years old and retired from international cricket, but boy, does he know how to score runs in the T20 format.

The elder statesman from Jamaica is the leading run-scorer in the history of T20 cricket. He holds several records in the shortest format of the game, including the highest individual score, most career sixes, most sixes in an innings, etc.

He deserves a place in the XI, especially if Pooran and Maxwell are not performing. He was 39 when last season started, but he still produced some quality displays with the bat in hand.

Year	Matches	Runs	Highest	Average	Strike rate
2018	11	368	104*	40.88	146.03
2019	13	490	99*	40.83	153.60

Gayle’s stats for KXIP

How it will change the batting combo and who will he replace?

The team balance will definitely change if Gayle is in the team as the West Indian cricketer is a specialist T20 opener. On the other hand, Pooran and Maxwell bat anywhere from 1 down to 3 down. This will mean that Mayank Agarwal will have to bat 1 down to make space for the Universe Boss.

Another interesting question will which player to drop for Chris Gayle? While both Pooran and Maxwell have not been among the runs this season, Maxwell certainly has a higher X factor in him. Moreover, Pooran is a left-hander, so it is a like-for-like change to drop him to get the experience of Chris Gayle.