Cricket: T20's greatest ever batsman Chris Gayle departs stage after West Indies elimination

New Zealand won't mind seeing the back of Chris Gayle, who averaged a career-high 36.25 in T20 cricket against them; as well as 66.21 in tests. Photo / Photosport

It was the end of West Indies in this World Cup - the defending champions have been the biggest disappointment of it - when they lost by 21 runs to Sri Lanka, and no doubt the end of Chris Gayle, the greatest T20 batsman, at least so far as his international career is concerned.

The end in cricket is seldom glorious, and this was as inglorious as any. West Indies had to score 190 to defeat Sri Lanka and stay in this competition. Gayle opened, hoping for one last hurrah at the age of 42, and after scoring a solitary single he ambled a pace down the Abu Dhabi pitch, unleashed, and toe-ended a catch to mid-off.

Gayle's was a slow funereal march as he walked off for the last time as a West Indies cricketer, assuming he does not play in the dead-rubber game against Australia. But his head was still held high, crowned by helmet, dreadlocks and records, for cricket will never see such a pioneer again.

More than anyone else in the world, Gayle popularised the 20-over format. Nobody indeed has shaped any format so much as Gayle shaped T20.

And not by new funky shots either but traditional lefthanded strokes: the straight-drive (such as the one that greeted Andrew Flintoff and sent the second ball of a Test for a six); the pull-drive (such as the one that dispatched Brett Lee out of the Oval and beyond); and the array of offside drives and carves that demolished any width.

All done with insouciance. As one of his 1000-odd T20 sixes would light up the night sky, sometimes not a flicker would pass over Gayle's face. He might amble towards his partner, walking as slowly as the white ball travelled quickly, as cool as only a Jamaican can be.

A few stats tell how far ahead he was of all his contemporaries. Gayle has hit 14306 runs in 20-over cricket. Nobody comes within 3000 runs of him.

The highest T20 innings is Gayle's unbeaten 175 for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 2016 IPL off 66 balls - and he slowed down! He had reached his hundred off 30 balls. Eight years on that is still the highest innings and the fastest century, so far was he ahead of his time.

In their book "Cricket 2.0" the authors Tim Wigmore and Freddie Wilde quote a banner unfurled in Bangalore that evening, and it could serve as the epitaph for Gayle's transformative impact on cricket: "When Gayle bats, fielders become spectators and spectators become fielders."

It is worth pausing, for a moment, like a bowler at the start of his run. In that innings Gayle brought up his century when RCB's innings had been going for 8.5 overs against Pune Warriors. Mind-boggling.

Gayle was brought back for this World Cup in the hope that he could do it once more, but he started at number three rather than open, and never got going. Nor did the West Indies as a team. They looked as though they had rested on their laurels as defending champions and not evolved as England, for example, have done.

Gayle in his prime could just stand there and hit sixes. Lesser mortals have to find additional ways to score. But even though the hurricane has blown itself out, Gayle will forever be remembered, not just as a white-ball hitter, but as a batsman who scored two Test triple-centuries. In sum, the Master Blaster.