Chris Gayle

Chris Gayle is in a long-term relationship with Natasha Berridge. They have a daughter named Krisallyna, but Chris does not have any plans to marry. Chris announced the birth of his daughter on ‘Instagram’ in April 2016.

Chris’s autobiography is titled ‘Six Machine: I Don’t Like Cricket ... I Love It.’

He follows football ardently and is a huge fan of ‘Real Madrid.’ His favorite footballer is Cristiano Ronaldo.

Chris Gayle was born Christopher Henry Gayle, in Kingston, Jamaica, into a lower middle-class family, on September 21, 1979. He was the fifth of the six children in the family. His parents faced a lot of financial issues while raising their children. His father, Dudley Gayle, worked as a policeman, while his mother sold peanuts to earn extra money to run the household.

Although his parents had no connection with cricket, Chris’s grandfather was a well-known cricketer. He had played some club cricket back in his younger days. This led Chris to become increasingly attracted toward the game.

Growing up in a huge family and faced with poverty, Chris also worked as a rag-picker for some time during the financial crisis that his family faced. He also once admitted to stealing for some time to support his family.

He was not academically good and focused all his attention on cricket. He graduated from ‘Excelsior High School’ in Jamaica and also joined a local Jamaican cricket club named ‘Lucas Cricket Club.’

Chris claims that his early years with ‘Lucas’ were the transformative years of his life and also believes that those years helped him truly understand the game. He slowly started gaining attention from the selectors by playing in local matches. In 1998, he made his debut for the West Indian youth international team.

In 1999, Chris Gayle made his international debut as part of the main West Indian team. His style of playing resonated well with the team management. In July 2001, Chris became some sort of a national sensation when he scored 175 runs against Zimbabwe. He also set the record for the longest opening partnership, with Daren Ganga, which stretched for 214 runs.

Despite this marvellous knock, Chris was not considered to be a regular player for the national team, as the century was against Zimbabwe, which was a weak team.

Then came the year 2002, when he made the most of his spot on the national team. By the end of the year, he scored three centuries in a series against India and became only the third West Indian cricketer to score 1000 runs in one calendar year. He thus entered the league of all-time greats such as Brian Lara and Sir Vivian Richards.

Back then, he was known as a hard-hitter of the ball. However, that was not the ideal style of playing in a Test match. Hence, he kept getting in and dropping out of the national Test team. In 2005, he shut the mouths of all his critics when he became the first player ever to score a Test triple-century against South Africa. The record was later broken by Sri Lankan batsman Mahela Jayawardene.

Around that time, Chris complained of dizziness and weakness on the field and had to leave the field in the middle of the game a few times. Upon being taken to hospital, he was diagnosed with congenital heart defect. A heart surgery was conducted on Chris to eliminate the problem from its roots.

Despite his usually calm and happy-go-lucky personality on the field, he has become the center of controversies quite a few times. In 2009, he stated that he would not mind if Test cricket were to be completely eliminated and taken over by the T20 format. He received a lot of flak for his statement.

In April 2011, Chris had a disagreement with the team management of West Indies and did not play for his national team the entire year.

He was pulled into controversy again, during the ‘Big Bash League’ in January 2016, during an interview with Mel McLaughlin. Chris asked her if they could “have a drink after” and later added “Don’t blush, baby,” a comment that was viewed as derogatory and misogynistic. This was met with a huge uproar, and a heavy fine was imposed on him. He apologized later and said that he had intended it to be a joke.