Former West Indies captain Chris Gayle has been left out of their preliminary squad for the limited overs series against Australia in the Caribbean as the Jamaican’s row with the regional cricket board rumbles on.
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) plans to meet Jamaica’s Prime Minister to discuss the damaging dispute which has resulted in strong criticism from fans, media and politicians in the Caribbean island over the treatment of Gayle.
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) on Thursday named a 30-man squad to attend fitness testing ahead of the series which begins on March 16 in St. Vincent with the first of five one-day internationals.
no gayle no cricket since he not playing a lot of west indies fans have lost interest in west indies cricket.
true.
A bouncer for Gayle
How Chris Gayle responds to the WICB’s latest move will show how interested he is in playing for West Indies
Garth Wattley
March 2, 2012
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Chris Gayle poses with one of his two trophies at the WIPA awards function , Jamaica, June 7, 2011
Will Gayle be too cool for school or will he play ball? © WIPA
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Players/Officials: Chris Gayle | Ottis Gibson | Darren Sammy
Teams: West Indies
Chris Gayle the batsman does not deal in half-measures. When he goes for his shots, the ball usually goes a long way, very quickly. Chris Gayle the man also does not specialise in subtlety. He calls it as he sees it. However, he now finds himself in a battle where frontal attack has left him on a sticky wicket.
It is now nearly a full year since the former West Indies captain gave the West Indies Cricket Board and team coach Ottis Gibson a public piece of his mind following another disappointing World Cup campaign by the Caribbean side. He is still, though, a bat for hire, estranged from his national team. There has been verbal tit for tat between player and board, claim and counter-claim, but as yet, no resolution to an issue that has even got the politicians involved.
New Jamaica prime minister Portia Simpson Miller now has her own beef with the WICB after what she and the Jamaica Cricket Association termed the board’s “disrespectful” response to her complaints about Jamaica not receiving a Test match for the series against Australia. She has also spoken out over the lengthy delay in resolving the Gayle impasse.
From the boardroom to the bar room, the Gayle issue has divided opinion through the islands.
Stretching past six feet, broad of shoulder, a left-hander, and as severe a striker of the ball as any, he is in manner a descendant of Clive Lloyd, a player carrying on with his business in the best West Indian style. But with his dreadlocks, ever-present shades and languid movements in the field, Gayle cuts a picture too cool for some who acquaint such a demeanour with not caring.
Gayle has for long had run-ins with West Indian officialdom. Early in his career, the selectors left him out of a tour to Australia in 2000-01 for attitudinal reasons. Later, as captain in 2007, then board president Ken Gordon wanted action taken against Gayle for his public criticisms of tour arrangements in England, statements he refused to retract. Current president Dr Julian Hunte, Gordon’s successor, let that matter die, but Gayle’s defiant tongue has come back to haunt the Hunte regime.
It has been a game of brinksmanship, these past 12 months. Last April, in that now infamous radio interview with Jamaican station KLAS Sports, he accused the WICB of not looking after an injury with which he had played during the World Cup in Asia. Worse, he labelled coach Gibson a “user”, claimed Gibson had “messed up” Ramnaresh Sarwan mentally, and that the team as a whole had not been in the right frame of mind to perform at the World Cup.
That caused an already uneasy relationship between Gayle and the board to reach boiling point. There has been no cooling down of tensions since. Like Monsterrat’s Soufriere volcano, which has burst forth at intervals over the past 17 years, the Gayle-WICB standoff has had flashpoints but no decisive climax. There was that heated meeting in Jamaica last June where it was claimed the board’s CEO, Dr Ernest Hilaire, was threatened with a chair by West Indies Players Association president Dinanath Ramnarine. Then came a long lull and a more “cordial” meeting.
Last month, though, the WICB made public a letter to Gayle outlining what was required for his return to the team. The timing was curious, coming soon after the Simpson Miller’s statements about the standoff. Retract the offensive statements, it said, and accept that you will only be eligible for conditional No Objection Certificates (NOCs) for T20 gigs, and we take you back.
“…We do not consider that you will be ineligible for selection for the foreseeable future, as you have expressed publicly a strong desire to play for the West Indies,” Hilare’s letter read. “It is WICB’s position that if a player wishes to play official cricket and to be considered for selection to play for the West Indies, and whether or not he signs a retainer contract, he must expect NOCs to be issued subject to international commitments, in accordance with the rules of the ICC which govern the overseas tournaments in which he wishes to play.”
How is Gayle to play this one? To refuse to accept such “reasonable” terms would be to cast doubt on how serious he is about wearing the maroon cap again. The WICB has delivered what they hope will be a public-relations masterstroke. Responding to this bouncer requires a deft touch.
Depending on which camp you listen to, Gayle is either a rebel with his own cause or a big man standing up to a dictatorial regime. Proud as he is, Gayle is unlikely to change his style; nothing in his history suggests that he will. He sees no sense in apologising for the “truth.” That sense of being in the right is reinforced by thinking of himself as the victim. Like the players’ association of which he is a vocal advocate, Gayle sees himself as a target of the establishment. It is simply not in his nature to back down; on the field, damaged legs and broken thumbs have not forced a retreat from him.
Gayle and Sammy in the same dressing room could make for some awkward, tense times, which Gibson may see as counter-productive to the building of a new team. Gayle’s presence ought to be an asset to the West Indies fledglings and his captain
The business of the NOCs is a contentious one, and the current subject of a US$20million restraint-of-trade lawsuit filed by WIPA against the WICB. At the heart of that issue is Gayle’s inability to sign a retainer with the Kolkata Knight Riders for 2011 through to 2013, or to attract a new team in the 2011 IPL auction, a development Gayle believes was linked to him not receiving an NOC from the WICB in October-November 2010.
In October of that year, Gayle had refused to sign a retainer contract with the board. His belated hiring by Royal Challengers Bangalore came only after an unconditional NOC was obtained from the WICB.
Gibson, another man of strong personality and conviction, is as unlikely to take Gayle back without a retraction as Gayle is to give one. It is difficult to see, even if somehow a resolution was officially arranged, how the damage done between coach and influential player can really be mended when neither man seems convinced about the true value of the other.
How Gayle and Darren Sammy can effectively coexist is another matter still. In the eyes of many West Indians, the incumbent captain is an establishment man. When Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and the other first teamers withheld their services for the disastrous home series against Bangladesh in 2009, the dutiful Sammy did not. When WIPA held its awards in Trinidad last year, while the local leg of the one-day series against India was in progress, Sammy was not present. (Though he later vigorously denied reports that he tried to stop other players from attending.)
Gayle and Sammy in the same dressing room could make for some awkward, tense times, which Gibson may see as counter-productive to the building of a new team. Gayle’s presence ought to be an asset to the West Indies fledglings and his captain. One true test of a coach is his ability to blend in all a team’s personalities. Gibson is not passing that test at present.
On the other side, Gayle cannot play the team man and at the same time be a T20 gun for hire. There must be compromise. He doesn’t seem to accept that.
This issue has become another among West Indies cricket’s many sad stories. There are no heroes in this game. No one will win. Another top West Indian player is set to walk away bitter.
Because pride is getting in everyone’s way.
Gayle has no interest in West Indies cricket.I am not missing him at all. Give me Kavem Hodge instead.
if a man doing crap den he doing crap and people like gayle cant watch crap and say nothing….. Gayle all the way. If we alow the cricket board to treat us as they like den they might just come after our very own shane shillingford
winward island going on their own are u guys crazy,the winward island was the banging pose or the regional competition just a few years ago,u guys in thinking that they can play against any of the icc select side is crazy.a side like bangladesh would eat them with second string players ,not even trinidad would be favourites and they are the best in the caribbean right now.
you have to start somewhere…At the moment the windward islands are not being selected, which is as a result of lack of motivation and incentive. Given the opportunity I am sure we will see a difference
the best player the winwards got is sammy and trust me he not good
The problem is not about Chris but about the board. They all need to go. Most board members dont care about the game but there self interest and how much their countries can benefit. This petty issues needs to be resolved for the game to make a proper come back.
And since when speaking the turth gets you out of a game for more than over a year. Honesty is the best policy. ALWAYS
The sooner the Windward islands stand up as independent separate team to Australia, India, England etc, our players in Dominica will never get the opportunity to showcase their skills and talent. At a threat of do this will force the WICA to take heed and be fairer in their selection. There is too much pandering to bigger/more influential islands.
WICB always put down our young men.Ask for Dominican cricketers….they cripple them one by one.
I agree that we should discuss but I sensed some arrogance in the tone of the JA PM. Gayle must not think that he is above the game. And yes, what is the rational for exclusion of D/can K Hodge from the Windwards Team?
Our problem in Dominica is we get to see test cricket late and therefore we don’t appreciate Gayle as we should. Come April, I am not going to pay my money to watch Julian Hunte or rest of the Windies board. I will pay to them Aussies against our best team rather than school boys.
A windies team without Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, and most likely Daren Bravo who should be involved in IPL cricket, and maybe without Rampaul, is no match for the Aussies.
All you hate Gayle because he chose to stand against the direction Mr. Julian, Ottis Gibson, and the unpopular board is taking our cricket. All you can hate the man but one thing, the Aussies will be happy they have got to face the man just like the Indians were. Criticize him as you want board he continues to make his Big $ and Daren Bravo would be foolish to not play IPL and play for windies instead especially when he saw how his brother Dwayne was treated by selectors and board to faciltate Daren sammy who is not good enough to command a pick in the Windward team, let alone captain of West Indies.
DAREN SAMMY IS NOT GOOD ENOUGHT TO PLAY ON THE WEST INDIES SIDE,BUT HE IS NUMBER 10 ON THE ICC TOP 20/20 CRICKETERS. YOUR SON CRITICISES YOU INFRONT OF YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS AND AS FAR AS YOU ARE CONCERNED HE IS A GREAT SON.
Obviously you are one of those persons who spends their time looking at the Antarctic and Martian Premier Cricket Leagues hence the reason you are seeing test cricket this late.
Because of your late introduction to real cricket, you may not have realized that Dwayne Bravo has been poor form for quite some time and he in fact asked for him to be given some time off to regain his focus and form for West Indies cricket.
Because of your late introduction to real cricket, you may not have been aware that the Australian cricket team is hardly bothered as to whether Gayle is on the West Indies team or not. If you are able, call Australia’s fast bowler Doug Bollinger and ask him for the name of the West Indian batsman who was his pappy show when the Windies last toured Australia.
Because of your late introduction to real cricket, you may not have known that when the West Indies team had its so called better players eg Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Dwayne Bravo, Jerome Taylor etc is steady licks the Windies team was getting.
Why would the Windies board have to meet with the PM? They should NOT!
you see that is why i always say jamaice barbados trinidad and guyana are belived to be the west indies when comes to cricket. so why is it that when a windward islander is not included our windward prime ministers do not call meetings with wicd? is tile for windwards to start their own test playing team just like canada and others and one day we must pass the test.
I am a little skeptical and suspicious about that too. That sets a precedent for other head of states to do the same when things are not going their way. Will the minutes and agreements be made public.
Unquestionably,this man is confused.He loves his fans but has his agenda.While the W.I.Board has no hammony of interest in his plea,cricket boards from abroad are paying inordinate sums of money to the icon for his talent.This controversy can be very difficult and unpractical to reconcile.
Enough with that Gayle thing.Yes he is a terrorisinhg batsmen, but as captain did he bring about the transformation of West Indies cricket which we expected. To me he is not bigger than the game.In any case he seem to have been interested only in limited overs cricket of late anyway!
Any man that is too big to apologise is not worthy of my support.
Let’s go with the young team..By the way it is time for the Windward Island to blood Kavem Hodge of Dominica and Wicketkeeper batsman Sunil Ambris of St Vincent. Two exciting under 19 West Indies players. I suspect both will play for West Indies Senior Team first and then Windward Island.
Everything those days are Upside Down.!
hhhhmmmm i wonder if our politicians would put pressure on the Windwards and West Indies concerning our own local players what would’ve been the result