Windies and Jamaican T20 superstar Chris Gayle has failed to get drafted into the Indian Premier League ahead of the 2018 season.
Gayle who has been at the Royal Challengers Bangalore for the past five seasons suffered a runs drought in 2017 despite a decent 2016 campaign.
He has earned his stripes playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore, scoring a 30-ball century, which became the highest individual T20 score (175 not out).
Moreover, he has scored 5 IPL tons.
He holds the record for most centuries in Twenty20 cricket (20),13 more than his nearest rival, Brendon McCullum. In fact, he holds the record for scoring the most number of unbeaten centuries in all forms of T20s. (14 out of his 20 T20 centuries have been not out.).
Gayle has the unique record for scoring tons in almost every T20 leagues across the world.
At the launch of the Caribbean Premier League, he was announced as the first franchise player for the league.
Although Gayle failed to get a look-in, his former IPL Captain Virat Kholi was retained by Royal Challengers Bangalore at the cost of US $2.6 million along with AB De Villiers and Sarfraz Khan.
The 38-year-old left-handed batsman also went undrafted for the Pakistan Super League earlier while his Windies teammates Andre Russell and Sunil Narine were retained, by the Kolkata Knight Riders.
The player retention is the first step towards the franchises reforming their squads ahead of the 2018 IPL player auction.
After the 2017 IPL, the tenth year of the tournament, the current squads were disbanded, apart from the players retained by the teams. The 2018 season of the IPL will commence on April 4.
