Kings XI Punjab’s heavy-hitter Chris Gayle will be on the verge of joining Sunrisers Hyderabad captain David Warner in an elite Indian Premier League list when he steps out to face Delhi Capitals on Sunday. KXIP will play their first match in Dubai against the Shreyas Iyer-led DC and will be hoping to get off to a winning start.
Gayle, who can unleash hell on any bowling opposition on his day, will be eager to get a flying start. The veteran West Indies cricketer has played 125 IPL matches so far in which he has scored 4,484 runs. He needs 16 runs to surpass the 4500-run mark in IPL. If he manages to reach the mark, he will become only the second foreign player after David Warner to do so.
Overall, Gayle will be sixth player to cross 4,500 IPL runs, after Virat Kohli (5,412 runs in 177 games), Suresh Raina (5,368 runs in 193 games), Rohit Sharma (4,898 in 188 games), David Warner (4,706 in 126 games) and Shikhar Dhawan (4,5679 runs in 159 games).
eanwhile, KXIP captain KL Rahul is 23 runs away from surpassing the 2000-run mark in IPL. If he manages to do so on Sunday, he will become only the 20th Indian to break the 2K barrier in IPL.
Ahead of the encounter, Rahul hoped KXIP will play good brand of cricket which will help them in the tournament. “The team has been fantastic, we’ve been getting along great and are looking forward to playing a good brand of cricket and making this season a memorable one,” Rahul said.
