West Indian opener Chris Gayle has announced his retirement from one-day international cricket after this summer’s World Cup, scheduled in England, this year.
The West Indies Cricket Board on Sunday tweeted and informed about this. The World Cup played in England and Wales from 30 May to 14 July this year will be the final tournament of this explosive batsman’s ODI career.
“#WINDIES batsman Chris Gayle has announced he will retire from One-day Internationals following the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 England & Wales”, the West Indies Cricket Board said in its Twitter.
Born in Jamaica, Christopher Henry Gayle, 39, started his ODI career in 1999 against India in Toronto, Canada.
Gayle has played 284 ODIs in his nearly 20 years of international career so far, in which he has scored 9727 runs at an average of 37.12. Gayle has so far scored 23 glorious hundreds and 49 half-centuries in his ODI career. Gayle has a strike rate of 85.82 in ODIs.
Gayle needs just 677 more runs to surpass the Brian Lara as the West Indies’ all-time record ODI runscorer, a feat he will be hoping to achieve at his fifth World Cup.
He also needs only 273 runs to complete his 10,000 runs in ODIs.
Explosive batsman Gayle played a brilliant innings of 215 against Zimbabwe in the 2015 World Cup which is the highest score of any West Indian batsman in ODIs.
Gayle is making a return to international cricket and has been included in the squad for the first two ODIs of the five-match one-day series against England starting on Wednesday. He played his last ODI against Bangladesh on 28 July last year.
Apart from batting, Gayle also makes important contribution to the team through his off-spin bowling and fielding.
So far, Gayle has taken 165 ODI wickets from his spin bowling and also took 120 catches while fielding.
