Twitter Reaction: Chris Gayle does not bat at Bangalore

On the 20th of March 2016, the World T20 made it’s first appearance at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. Despite the absence of the ‘prodigal son’ Chris Gayle, the Bengaluru fans had something to cheer about. Andre Russell became the fan favorite with a masterclass of an innings. During the Sri Lanka batting innings, the crowd clamoured and chanted “Dwayne Bravo”. The latter didn’t disappoint with the few dance moves aimed at creating a lift in terms of crowd support.

However, the major incident occurred during the West Indies batting innings. The Bengaluru crowd was left absolutely shell-shocked when Johnson Charles and Andre Fletcher made their way to the middle. Little did they understand that Chris Gayle had suffered an injury to his left hamstring and the fact that he stayed away from the field of play meant that he could only bat lower down the order. Chants of ‘We want Gayle” reverberated across the vast expanse of the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. Things became all the noisier when Gayle, all padded up, began to make his way out of the dressing room. The reserve umpire, Ian Gould, perhaps half the size of Gayle, was the only thing that stood in the way of Gayle entering the field of play. However, he was stopped, rather efficiently and hand-cuffed back into the dressing room by the wily Mr. Gould. To much of Gould’s surprise, his antics, although though to be satirical and comedic, was met with a crescendo of boos from the spectators. Chris Gayle eventually did not have a bat, however, took to his heavenly Twitter account to apologize to the Bengaluru fans who had indeed turned out in their numbers to come and see him wield his bat. That said, here are some of the best Tweets following the inappropriate tussle between Gould and Gayle.