Andrew Tye is eager to unleash his skills against Chris Gayle in the nets

Andrew Tye has been one of Australia’s most successful fast bowlers in the T20 format. He is currently representing the national team in the tri-series against New Zealand and England. The Perth-born cricketer has been scintillating with the leather over the past couple of years. He has restricted the batsmen bowling immaculate channels and with subtle variations of pace. In the last one year, the pacer has notched as many as three hat-tricks in the shortest format of the game.

He entered the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018 Auction with a base price of INR 1 crore and was expected to be one of the hottest picks among the foreign contingent of cricketers. He was eventually bagged for a mind-boggling amount of INR 7.2 crores by the Kings XI Punjab. Meanwhile, Chris Gayle also found a buyer in the Punjab franchise after remaining unsold for the first couple of rounds.

Tye to Gayle

In a recent interaction with the media, Tye expressed his eagerness to bowl to Christopher Henry Gayle in the nets. “It’ll be an awesome experience. He (Gayle) has been the boss of T20 cricket for so long, it is fun and also scary at times bowling to the likes of him in the nets because they hit the ball very hard and you try not to get hit by it (laughs)” he said.

The Australian bowler also admitted that he didn’t expect to go beyond a certain limit and mentioned the franchise’s desire to buy him in the auction. “It took me a bit by surprise. I was thinking I’ll probably get 3-4 Crore if at all. The club is paying me that money because they really wanted me because I’ll fit in well in their team,” Tye added.

Kings XI Punjab had their woes in all departments ever since the inception of the tournament. They have shown promise but never emerged victorious in any of the previous seasons. Punjab will be looking to turn their fortunes around with the addition of Tye and a list of other big names in their ranks