Stats: Chris Gayle equals Shahid Afridi's record for most sixes in international cricket

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During the third ODI between West Indies and Bangladesh at St. Kitts and Nevis, Windies opener Chris Gayle has equalled former Pakistan all-rounder Shahid Afridi's record of most sixes in international cricket.

During his knock of 73 off 66 balls, Gayle hit as many as five sixes and his fifth six will be a memorable one as it was his 476th international six, equalling Afridi's tally. It took Gayle 443 matches and 513 innings across all three formats to reach the milestone, which is very impressive with a ratio of 0.86 sixes each innings, but is slightly less than Afridi's tally of 476 sixes in 524 matches and 508 innings, which is roughly 0.93 sixes every time he came out to bat.

Gayle has scored 98 sixes in the longer format, two less than the world record for most sixes in Tests which is held by Adam Gilchrist (100), 275 maximums in 279 ODI innings and 103 sixes in 52 T20I innings. Gayle has a chance to break Afridi's record on August 1st as he is a part of the 3-match T20I series against Bangladesh.

Gayle also has a golden chance to become the first batsman to hit 500 international sixes. No other batsman apart from Gayle and Afridi has scored 400 sixes at the top level and the man who is closer to them is former India skipper MS Dhoni, who is fifth in the all-time list behind Afridi, Gayle, Brendon McCullum (398) and Sanath Jayasuriya (352) with 342 sixes.

It is highly unlikely that Dhoni will go on to break the record that will soon be created by Chris Gayle. Out of the current set of batsmen, New Zealand's Martin Guptill and India's Rohit Sharma have the highest probability of breaking Gayle's soon-to-be-created record as they are seventh and eighth in the all-time list with 291 and 274 sixes respectively.