West Indies faced hosts South Africa at the Wanderers on 11 September 2007. Gayle took strike alongside Devon Smith and began by dealing mostly in boundaries. He brought up fifty off 26 balls and then accelerated.

The innings contained seven fours and ten sixes. The sixes were not all slogged in one direction. Gayle drove straight, swung over leg and used the pace offered by an attack that included Shaun Pollock and Makhaya Ntini. His height and stillness made the violence look curiously economical. Bowlers completed entire run-ups; Gayle appeared to move two joints.

When he reached three figures, he became the first batsman to score an international century in all three formats. The T20I hundred was also the first by anyone, anywhere. He eventually made 117 from 57 balls, and West Indies posted 205 for 6 from their allotment.

That should have been the story. South Africa objected.

Records, meet conditions

The Wanderers was a high-scoring ground, and the hosts, who hold the record for the highest successful run-chase in ODI cricket—438 for 9 against Australia at the same venue the previous year—knew it all too well. 

South Africa's reply began at the required tempo with Graeme Smith’s 28. Herschelle Gibbs took over, and Justin Kemp supplied the finishing power.

Gibbs finished unbeaten on 90 off 55 balls. Kemp made 46 not out from 22. South Africa reached 208 for 2 with 14 balls remaining to win by eight wickets.

Gayle was named player of the match, an honour that accurately described his performance while doing nothing for the result. West Indies then lost to Bangladesh, failing to reach the next stage.

The tournament continued without them and became the event that convinced international cricket to take Twenty20 seriously. India won the title, beating archrivals Pakistan by a tense 5-run margin in a thrilling finale. The formation of the Indian Premier League (IPL), which is now considered the standard for T20 cricket, followed in 2008. Within a few years, the format had rearranged careers, calendars, and cricket's economics.

Gayle was more prepared than almost anyone. The innings at Johannesburg did not invent his T20 game, but it revealed how perfectly his existing gifts fitted the new format. He could hit length balls for six without elaborate footwork, punish pace and spin, and maintain an apparently untroubled expression while doing expensive things to bowlers.

He would become the format's first global superstar. Gayle made his first of six IPL centuries in 2011, with his highest score in the competition, 175 not out, coming two seasons later. In 2017, he became the first man to pass 10,000 T20 runs in 2027, all while representing Royal Challengers Bangalore. The title "Universe Boss" arrived years later, but the job application had been submitted at the Wanderers.

The West Indian complication is that the Caribbean produced many of the players who defined Twenty20, yet the regional and international game often struggled to benefit fully from their value. Franchise leagues could offer wealth, stability, and demand that West Indies cricket could not match. 

Gayle's success became both a source of regional pride and the beginning of a difficult new relationship between national duty and private opportunity. None of that was visible in full on 11 September 2007. What was visible was a new format discovering its first natural monarch.

Gayle made the first T20I hundred, West Indies made 205, and South Africa chased it with more than two overs left. On its opening night, the World Twenty20 announced that old ideas about a safe total would require immediate revision.

Sources:

• ESPNcricinfo: South Africa v West Indies match report
• The Guardian: Records fall to Gayle but South Africa win
• ESPNcricinfo: Full scorecard