Chris Gayle's 67-ball 84 was an awesome display of power-hitting, and no Indian bowler felt the heat more than Tinu Yohannan. He bowled 20 balls to Gayle and was clobbered for 46 runs; against the other batsmen, he bowled 11 balls, conceded just three runs and took two wickets. Gayle was merciless against anything which was either too full or too short, scoring 35 runs against 22 deliveries. But what made his innings so spectacular was his ability to repeatedly punish the good-length deliveries too – his strike-rate was 109% against the length balls.

Zaheer Khan was by far the most successful in restricting Gayle, conceding just seven runs from 17 balls. Fourteen of those deliveries were just outside off; none drifted down leg side. In contrast, Yohannan bowled 12 deliveries which pitched outside leg, and was creamed for 26 runs.

In fact, the arc between the straight boundary and midwicket was the most productive area for Gayle – 40 out of 84 runs came in that region (48%). Just a third of his runs were scored on the off side.

A player scoring at such a frenetic pace would be expected to mistime or edge a few, but Gayle's in-control percentage was an acceptable 73%. Throughout the Indian innings, the figure was only 65%. His knock snuffed out all hopes of an Indian fightback, and ensured that West Indies would take the psychological edge going into the decider.

S Rajesh is sub editor of Wisden.com in India.

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