Gayle slow with his 175 off 66

An amazing bout of sustained hitting it certainly was, but Chris Gayle was unable to hit six sixes in a row in his amazing IPL innings.

 

Jordan Clark hit six sixes though, for Lancashire 2nd XI.   Good going - he has matched what has been done 4 times in first class cricket.

 

It seems batsmen are finding it easier and easier to hit sixes and bowlers everywhere of course argue that the bats have got far better, but equally they seem to keep bowling length.   If you watch Gayle's innings, there's very few good (in the context of Twenty20) balls that he's hitting for six - they're nearly all length balls.   Yes, Malinga gets it wrong sometimes, but why don't more people bowl to hit the toes, a la Malinga.   If he gets it wrong he can be expensive, but more often than not he keeps even the best batsmen under control, as he did in the final over he bowled yesterday that cost 3 (one of them a leg bye) and allowed his team Mumbai to win in a tight match.

 

Amazing Afridi century in vain

Sri Lanka managed to survive the an Afridi onslaught with relative ease, given that Pakistan were 205-6 in the 41st over chasing 242. With Afridi set, at that point they should have been favourites, despite Afridi struggling with cramp.

Good to see Afridi at his best - on top form he's one of the best Twenty20 and ODI players in the world and the fact he wasn't snapped up by the IPL franchises can only be down to politics.

Afridi's heroics won him the man-of-the-match award but Malinga can't have been far off with 5-34. He was one of the two "freaks" that Sri Lanka have unearthed, who have no formal coaching but are still international class, the other being Ajantha Mendis. But Mendis was dropped for the Asia Cup which I find amazing, as - it seems - did Island Cricket judging from this post.

I trust Mendis will be back in the squad for Sri Lanka's next Test - when they play India in July - and hopefully that's more important to him than ODIs.