: Royal Challengers Bangalore i.e. RCB has honored two of its RCB Hall of Fame legends ahead of the start of IPL 2023. The name of one of these two legends is AB de Villiers while the name of the other is Chris Gayle . For his honor, RCB had organized an event, which was called the RCB Unbox Event. On the occasion of this event, Chris Gayle recalled his first IPL century and recounted how Kohli helped him score his first IPL century.
Chris Gayle said during this RCB special event that, “When I was at 98 in my first match for RCB, Virat Kohli blocked a few consecutive balls so I could score my first IPL century.” Let us tell you, Chris Gayle scored the first IPL century against KKR in 2011 while playing for RCB. Batting first in that match, KKR scored 171 runs in 20 overs. Pursuing that goal, Gayle played an unbeaten 102-run century off 55 balls for RCB. Apart from them, Tillakaratne Dilshan played 38 and Virat also played unbeaten innings of 30 runs.
RCB won this match on the first ball of the 19th but Virat could have won the match only on the second ball of the 18th but he didn’t. Virat hit a four off the first ball of the 18th. After that, RCB needed just 2 runs to win and Gayle did not strike, remaining unbeaten on 98 runs. Kohli then blocked 6 consecutive balls and didn’t take any runs. Of these 6 balls, one ball was wide. On the first ball of the next over, Gayle gave victory to his side by hitting a four and also completed his first century in the IPL.
After that first century, Chris Gayle scored many centuries for RCB and made many IPL records in their name. RCB have also awarded him Hall of Fame honors as well as paying tribute to him by retiring his number 333 shirt forever.