West Indies’ hard-hitting batter Chris Gayle claimed that he is the greatest off-spinner in the world, and even the Sri Lankan spin legend Muttiah Muralitharan will not contest this claim of his.

He made those comments in jest before the start of the inauguration edition of The 6ixty.

Gayle is known as one of the best-ever batters in the shortest format of the game, scoring 14562 runs so far, but he is also a handy spinner who has 83 wickets to his name in the format. Well, the destructive batter is excited to play in the new format franchise tournament, The 6ixty.

Chris Gayle told ESPNCricinfo: “You know what? My bowling is natural. Definitely, I have to bowl. I'm the greatest off-spinner of all time. Murali (Muttiah Muralitharan) won't contest that for sure. I have the best economy, not even Sunil Narine can come close to that.”

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Speaking about the 6ixty, the veteran cricketer said: “I'm really excited to be back in the field. I missed it. I'm like a kid again, looking forward to the first game... For my debut. I'll have to get back in shape. I'm still in shape but just a li'll prep here and there to get in that mindset of playing cricket.”

The 60-ball tournament has a lot of new innovations like the “Mystery Fan Ball” in which a batter can't get out, and Gayle said that the move was to make the game more interesting.

He signed off by saying, “Bowlers nowadays are creative. They've got a lot of variations and they make it challenging for the batters. Of course, the batting part is more dominant in shorter forms but the bowlers have a lot of skills to make it uncomfortable for the batter.

It's gonna be interesting from the batters' point of view. Saint Kitts is a small ground, I'm expecting good pitches. It's gonna be exciting, there's gonna be a lot of chaos. It'll be up to us how we make it even more interesting for the fans out there.”

(With ESPNCricinfo Inputs)