Chris Gayle’s fortune in IPL was changed when he started playing for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru from the fourth season, which he took by storm.
The Story
Lalit Modi, the former chairman of IPL, narrated how he played a vital role in changing Chris Gayle’s fortune in IPL in a podcast with former England captain Michael Vaughan.
In the words of Modi, “You know, there was a time in 2011; I remember very clearly, I had just left the IPL, come back to London, and my good friend, Chris Gayle, wasn’t picked up at the auction, and I get a call from him.
“Nobody’s picked me up at the auction. I said, you didn’t perform. IPL is all about performing. You played for the Kolkata Knight Riders. My feeling is, you didn’t perform, you can perform, but you just got lazy about it,” Lalit Modi said
The Call
Along with Modi, it was Vijay Mallya, the former owner of RCB who along with him was the man who gave the opener a chance as a replacement player which changed Chris Gayle’s fortune in IPL, as prior to that, he hadn’t had much of an impact for Kolkata Knight Riders as a result of which he wasn’t picked in the 2011 auction.
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The Condition
Modi recalled how Gayle told him he desperately wanted to feature in the league and that is when Modi approached Mallya. “He said, I really wanted it, I have a huge debt, and I think I need it to pay my bills. I made a few calls. Call 1, 2,3. Everybody said no.”
“I went across the road to Vijay Mallya’s house. I said, Vijay, give this bloke a try. He said, you know, I think Nathan’s been injured or something. Nathan was injured. He said, I have an opening. But I’ll pay him if he performs,” Modi narrated.
The Performance
Once assured of him getting a chance, Modi told Gayle to perform, and that’s exactly what he did by guiding RCB to the final that year.
“I told Chris, go there, perform. He set world records. He wrote his chequebook. He wrote his own like. He never looked back after that. He got a multi-million dollar contract. He went and performed, and it was the hunger in him that made him do it,” Modi concluded.
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