Gayle Force Warning for Taunton

Somerset County Cricket Club has signed West Indies batsman Chris Gayle.

The 35 year old will join the County as an overseas player for a portion of the NatWest T20 Blast season.

Depending on how far his franchise progress into the Indian Premier League, he will join Somerset on either the 22nd or 29th of May and will be with the Club until June 13th.  This will enable him to feature in the following NatWest T20 Blast fixtures:

• May 22ndSomerset v Sussex
• May 29th Essex v Somerset
• May 31st Somerset v Kent
• June 5th Somerset v Hampshire
• June 12th Somerset v Surrey
• June 13th Glamorgan v Somerset

Gayle, who nearly joined Somerset in 2012, has played in 45 T20 Internationals, scoring 1406 runs at an average of 35.15 with a highest score of 117.  He has played in an additional 195 T20 matches, amassing 6975 runs at an average 42.01 with a top score of 175*.  He can also boast 13 centuries and 45 half centuries in T20 cricket and 1 century and 13 half centuries in T20I’s.

His statistics are equally impressive in Test cricket where he has scored 7214 runs in 103 matches at an average of 42.18.  His highest Test score came in 2010 when he made 333 against Sri Lanka in Galle.  This was his second triple century and surpassed his previous best of 317 against South Africa in 2005.

The left hander’s One-Day record is also one to strike fear in to the hearts of bowlers.  In 268 ODI’s he has scored 9160 runs at an average of 37.23 and recently made his highest ODI score of 215 in the West Indies World Cup win over Zimbabwe.  This was the first time in World Cup history that a player had reached a double century.

Somerset Director of Cricket Matt Maynard said: “Signing a world class player of the quality of Chris Gayle is tremendously exciting for the Club.  He will be a tremendous addition to our already extremely strong squad.  He is an inspirational character and we are delighted to be bringing him to Somerset.  We have a number of overseas players on the roster for the 2015 campaign and Chris’ arrival and registration will give us a number of options which we will look at as we approach each competition.”

Chris Gayle said: “I’m excited about joining Somerset for the NatWest T20 Blast this year.  Many of the Club’s Members and supporters will know that I came close to playing for the County in 2012 and I have always felt that, if I was able to, I wanted to honour that commitment to Somerset.  I’m looking forward to coming to Taunton and scoring some runs”.