Gayle scored a splendid century, off 47 balls, smashing 11 sixes and five fours as the Windies chased down their target of 183 with ease.
Of course, it should come as no surprise at all that the 36-year-old Jamaican was the difference between the two sides.
After all, unlike most of the England team, Gayle is a T20 specialist and plays for various franchises in several different competitions around the world.
Indeed, despite his advancing years, he is very much the embodiment of a modern day cricketer, globetrotting and raking in the cash with only a minimum amount of effort by playing the shortest form of the game.
By contrast, Test cricket - for Gayle at least - is an anachronism. As far back as 2009, he commented that he "wouldn't be so sad" if Test cricket was superseded by T20 cricket in the future - and, in fact, he has not played in the five-day format since 2014.
Now, please do not misunderstand this blog - it is not going to be another English-centric rant about how T20 is killing off our beloved Test cricket.
If anything, T20 is doing the opposite by attracting a younger and more family-oriented audience to the sport.
There are no guarantees but these people may just go on to check out a 50-over match or Test cricket - and, even if they do not, that would be their choice and would unlikely be the fault of T20.
Furthermore, this write-up is not a criticism of Gayle - or, for that matter, a certain Kevin Pietersen - or indeed any other modern cricketers who want to monetise the value of their talent in the same way as top-level footballers do.
That is their right and, ultimately, the amount of money which they make out of the game will depend on the quality of the product and their contribution to it.
Instead, this is an attempt to find a way in which T20, One Day Internationals and Test cricket can peacefully coexist.
This is not a straightforward matter but clearly there is far too much cricket being played every year at the moment.
Players cram game after game in exhausting tours, while teams often lack consistency and struggle, particularly, in away series.
One key change which could be made would be to abandon T20 internationals altogether, at least among the top countries.
For, if T20 is all about the razzmatazz - something which fits in seamlessly with the likes of the Indian Premier League and the highly successful Big Bash in Australia - then this is not something which works quite so well in international cricket.
International team-mates are more dryly determined by an accident of birth or their choice of naturalisation, and not the fantasy team-based constructs to which the whole idea of T20 would seem to belong.
Of course, this sort of change is unlikely to happen anytime soon, if at all. The world governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), understandably sees too much money to be made with T20 to remove its own stake.
However, in making this choice, it ignores the wider picture of player burn-out and a declining interest around the world in Tests.
In terms of a solution, then: what about an arrangement where the ICC agreed to give up on organising their own T20 cricket in returning for fixing the dates of various sanctioned franchise events?
Outside of the T20 tournaments, the ICC would be able to schedule the traditional Test and ODI series - here too, though, there is a lot of room for improvement.
Actually, at least on that issue, the ICC appears to be moving in the right direction. Test cricket badly needs a simple structure which can be easily understood and, indeed, successfully marketed.
For example, England's fine recent win in South Africa ultimately counted for little except for a slight adjustment in the fabled Test rankings of a few points either way.
But how much more important would that series have felt it had saved England from relegation to a second tier?
Basically, it seems obvious to me that a proper round-robin structure with promotion and relegation between different tiers is long overdue.
Finally, it is my view that ODIs should stay as, in the absence of T20 internationals, they would provide a reasonable contrast to Test cricket while providing the guarantee of an on-the-day result.
Nevertheless, there should certainly be no more than five ODIs played at the end of each Test series.
Of course, it also makes sense that both Test and ODI results contributed to a team's place in the league, in a similar way to which the Women's Ashes are currently contested.
Meanwhile, the original - and still primary - Cricket World Cup would continue to be played every four years outside of the promotion/relegation structure.
Instead of all this, however, the World Cup's 'little brother' - the World T20 - looks set to continue, with the 2020 tournament already scheduled to be taken to Australia.
Frankly, anyone could turn up there as defending champions after the heavy loss for favourites India in their game against New Zealand yesterday - in fact, even England have won this competition once in 2010.
Surely, though, the bigger question which needs to be asked is how much would it really matter if it happened again?
GROUP 1 FIXTURES
SRI LANKA + SOUTH AFRICA + WEST INDIES + ENGLAND + AFGHANISTAN
| Date | Venue | Result |
| 16 Mar 14:00 | Mumbai | WEST INDIES 183-4 18.1 beat ENGLAND 182-6 by six wickets |
| 17 Mar 14:00 | Kolkata | SRI LANKA 155-4 18.5 beat AFGHANISTAN 153-7 by six wickets |
| 18 Mar 14:00 | Mumbai | ENGLAND 230-8 19.4 beat SOUTH AFRICA 229-4 by two wickets |
| 20 Mar 09:30 | Mumbai | SOUTH AFRICA 209-5 beat AFGHANISTAN 172 by 37 runs |
| 20 Mar 14:00 | Bangalore | WEST INDIES 127-3 18.2 beat SRI LANKA 122-9 by seven wickets |
| 23 Mar 09:30 | Delhi | ENGLAND 142-7 beat AFGHANISTAN 127-9 by 15 runs |
| 25 Mar 14:00 | Nagpur | WEST INDIES 123-7 19.4 bt SOUTH AFRICA 122-8 by three wkts |
| 26 Mar 14:00 | Delhi | ENGLAND 171-4 beat SRI LANKA 161-8 by 10 runs |
| 27 Mar 10:30 | Nagpur | AFGHANISTAN 123-7 beat WEST INDIES 117-8 by six runs |
| 28 Mar 15:00 | Delhi | SOUTH AFRICA 122-2 17.4 bt SRI LANKA 120 19.3 by eight wkts |
| GROUP 1 | W | L | NR | Run rate | Pts |
| (Q) WEST INDIES | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0.36 | 6 |
| (Q) ENGLAND | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0.15 | 6 |
| SOUTH AFRICA | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0.65 | 4 |
| SRI LANKA | 1 | 3 | 0 | -0.46 | 2 |
| AFGHANISTAN | 1 | 3 | 0 | -0.72 | 2 |
GROUP 2 FIXTURES
INDIA + NEW ZEALAND + PAKISTAN + AUSTRALIA + BANGLADESH
| Date | Venue | Result |
| 15 Mar 14:00 | Nagpur | NEW ZEALAND 126-7 beat INDIA 79 18.1 by 47 runs |
| 16 Mar 09:30 | Kolkata | PAKISTAN 201-5 beat BANGLADESH 146-6 by 55 runs |
| 18 Mar 09:30 | Dharmasala | NEW ZEALAND 142-8 beat AUSTRALIA 134-9 by eight runs |
| 19 Mar 14:00 | Kolkata | INDIA 119-4 15.5 beat PAKISTAN 118-5 18 by six wickets |
| 21 Mar 14:00 | Bangalore | AUSTRALIA 157-7 18.3 bt BANGLADESH 156-5 by three wkts |
| 22 Mar 14:00 | Mohali | NEW ZEALAND 180-5 beat PAKISTAN 158-5 by 22 runs |
| 23 Mar 14:00 | Bangalore | INDIA 146-7 beat BANGLADESH 145-9 by one run |
| 25 Mar 09:30 | Mohali | AUSTRALIA 193-4 beat PAKISTAN 172-8 by 21 runs |
| 26 Mar 09:30 | Kolkata | NEW ZEALAND 145-8 beat BANGLADESH 70 15.4 by 75 runs |
| 27 Mar 15:00 | Mohali | INDIA 161-4 19.1 beat AUSTRALIA 160-6 by six wickets |
| GROUP 2 | W | L | NR | Run rate | Pts |
| (Q) NEW ZEALAND | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1.90 | 8 |
| (Q) INDIA | 3 | 1 | 0 | -0.31 | 6 |
| AUSTRALIA | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0.23 | 4 |
| PAKISTAN | 1 | 3 | 0 | -0.09 | 2 |
| BANGLADESH | 0 | 4 | 0 | -1.80 | 0 |
KNOCKOUT STAGE
| Date | Venue | Result |
| 30 Mar 14:30 | Delhi | SF1 ENGLAND 159-3 17.1 bt NEW ZEALAND 153-8 by seven wkts |
| 31 Mar 14:30 | Mumbai | SF2 WEST INDIES 196-3 19.4 beat INDIA 192-2 by seven wickets |
| 03 Apr 14:30 | Kolkata | FIN WEST INDIES 161-6 19.4 beat ENGLAND 155-9 by four wickets |
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