Vancouver Knights, the winner of the first season of the Global T20 League, retained six players including the three marquee players. Last season’s captain Chris Gayle, Pakistani all-rounder Shoaib Malik, and West Indies all-rounder Andre Russell are the marquee players for the Knights.
Chris Gayle
Jamaican born Christopher Henry Gayle, (born 21 September 1979) plays international cricket for the West Indies. Considered as one of the greatest batsmen ever in Twenty20 (T20) cricket, Gayle has set numerous records across all three formats of cricket. He is the most capped player for the West Indies in international cricket. He is the only player to score a triplet of centuries – a triple hundred in Tests, double hundred in ODIs and a hundred in T20Is.
Gayle is known for his characteristic hitting, imposing physique, and timing. He attributes the latter to being very thin when young, and having a heavy bat.
He is known for appearing very calm as the bowler approaches. “Tall and imposing at the crease, he loves to carve through the covers off either foot, and has the ability to decimate the figures of even the thriftiest of opening bowlers” recorded Wisden and ESPNcricinfo.
Known worldwide as “The Universe Boss” Chris Gayle holds numerous records that reflect his batting style, including record Twenty20 strike-rates and high scores.
| Chris Gayle’s record in Twenty20 matches | |||||||
| Period | Matches | Runs | HS | 100s | 50s | Avg. | |
| T20I | 2006- | 50 | 1519 | 117 | 2 | 13 | 35.33 |
| IPL | 2009- | 119 | 4316 | 175* | 6 | 27 | 41.9 |
| CLT20 | 2009-14 | 6 | 257 | 92 | 0 | 2 | 42.83 |
| BBL | 2011-16 | 22 | 22 | 100* | 1 | 4 | 30.90 |
| BPL | 2012- | 38 | 1338 | 146* | 5 | 4 | 41.81 |
| CPL | 2013- | 66 | 2111 | 111* | 3 | 13 | 42.22 |
| PSL | 2016-17 | 14 | 263 | 60 | 0 | 1 | 18.78 |
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Full name | Christopher Henry Gayle | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 21 September 1979 (age 39) Kingston, Jamaica |
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| Nickname | Universe Boss,[1][2] Henry, Gayle-Force, Gayle Storm | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting | Left-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling | Right-arm off break | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Role | All-rounder | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| T20I debut (cap 6) | 16 February 2006 v New Zealand | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last T20I | 8 March 2019 v England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Source: ESPNCricinfo, 4 July 2019 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Shoaib Malik
Shoaib Malik (born 1 February 1982) captained the Pakistan national cricket team from 2007 to 2009. On 2 July 2018, he became the first male cricketer to play 100 T20Is.
Shoaib Malik has taken over 150 ODI wickets, and has a batting average in the mid 30s in both Test and ODI cricket. On 1 July 2018, Malik also became the first Asian batsman to score 2,000 runs in T20Is, and third overall and first player to play 100 T20Is in the world.
Shoaib Malik was appointed the captain of the Karachi Kings in the first PSL tournament. His team under his captaincy won only two matches in the whole tournament, which also affected his own performance. In the last match, he handed over the captaincy to Ravi Bopara and appeared as a player in the match.
He was retained by the Karachi Kings for the second season. He had a much better season compared to the first one, as he scored runs in crucial matches and ended the season as third highest-runs scorer for his side, scoring 202 runs in 10 innings.
During the PSL’s third season, Malik joined new PSL franchise Multan Sultans as their captain. He led his team from the front with the bat, scoring 224 runs across 8 innings with a strike rate of 124.44. As a result of the termination of the Multan Sultans franchise before the fourth season of the PSL due to fee-payment issues, the PCB created a new team up for bidding, temporarily named as The Sixth Team, of which Malik is expected to be assigned the role of captain.
In August 2018, during the 2018 Caribbean Premier League tournament, he became the fourth batsman to score 8,000 runs in T20s. In July 2019, following Pakistan’s last match in the 2019 Cricket World Cup, Shoaib announced his retirement from ODI cricket.
| Shoaib Malik | |
| Personal information | |
| Born | 1 February 1982 (age 37) Pakistan |
| Batting | Right-hand bat |
| Bowling | Right-arm off-break |
| Role | Batting |
| T20I debut (cap 10) | 28 August 2006 v England |
Jamaican born Andre Dwayne Russell (born 29 April 1988) plays internationally for the West Indies and for Jamaica in West Indian domestic cricket as an all-rounder. He has played in over 300 Twenty20 matches for a range of sides in leagues throughout the world.
Widely regarded as one of the most powerful strikers of the ball in limited-overs cricket, Russell scored a century in a record 40 balls in the 2018 Caribbean Premier League and took a hat-trick in the same match, becoming the second player to take a hat-trick and score a century in the same Twenty20 match.
During the 2012 Indian Premier League Players Auction, he was bought by the Delhi Daredevils. Ahead of the 2014 season he was bought by Kolkata Knight Riders and has been seen as a key batsman for the team in the later overs of matches. He was on course to win the IPL Super Striker award in 2018, awarded for having the highest strike rate in the tournament, before being pipped by his teammate Sunil Narine. He eventually won it next year in the 2019 IPL, where he had a record IPL season strike rate of over 205, and was also announced as the Player of the Tournament. In an otherwise unsuccessful season, he emerged as both the highest run scorer and the highest wicket taker for his team, while also being the third highest run scorer in the tournament. He hit 52 sixes in the tournament ; only Chris Gayle has hit more sixes in any single season of the IPL.
In the 2016 Pakistan Super League he played for Islamabad United. He finished the tournament as the leading wicket-taker, taking 16 wickets. On 6 August 2016 Russell scored the fastest Caribbean Premier League century, completing his 100 in 42 balls. He broke his own CPL record in 2018 with a century in 40 balls.
In May 2018, he was named as one of the ten marquee players for the first edition of the Global T20 Canada cricket tournament. He was selected to play for the Vancouver Knights.
In September 2018, he was named as the Icon Player for Nangarhar’s squad in the first edition of the Afghanistan Premier League tournament. The following month, he was named in the squad for the Dhaka Dynamites in the 2018–19 Bangladesh Premier League. In June 2019, he was selected to play for the Vancouver Knights franchise team in the 2019 Global T20 Canada tournament.
| Andre Russell | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Full name | Andre Dwayne Russell | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 29 April 1988 (age 31) Kingston, Jamaica |
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| Nickname | Dre Russ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting | Right-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling | Right-arm fast | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Role | All-rounder | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Source: ESPNcricinfo, 17 June 2019 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||