Chris Gayle: ‘You’re with men. You’re good-looking. What do you expect?’

Chris Gayle: ‘You’re with men. You’re good-looking. What do you expect?’
The West Indies star is used to defending himself but insists the sexism row over his interview with an Australian TV reporter was blown out of proportion

‘I’m disappointed people don’t recognise what I did in Test cricket’ says Chris Gayle, one of only four batsmen to score two Test triple-centuries. Photograph: Linda Nylind/for the Guardian
Donald McRae
@donaldgmcrae

Tuesday 14 June 2016 11.03 BST Last modified on Tuesday 14 June 2016 22.00 BST

Chris Gayle doesn’t trust me but blunt honesty is preferable when, in exchange, he is fiercely concentrated during our hour together. The West Indies batsman is calm yet defiant, combative but wounded. Before we offer our contrasting opinions, when it feels right to tell Gayle his attitude towards women is wrong and for him to voice suspicion of “you people”, he warrants serious attention.

Earlier this year, before the World T20, the English cricket pundit Mark Nicholas dismissed Gayle and his team-mates. In a breathtakingly arrogant and nonsensical phrase, Nicholas wrote: “The West Indies are short of brains.”



“That drove us even harder,” Gayle says. “How can you disrespect the West Indies when we were so dominant in world cricket for so long? We have to face it ourselves because our own board don’t defend us. So we have to fight our own war in the middle against these allegations about West Indies having no brains. How can you jump to that conclusion? It shows no respect. They smile at you – while trying to destroy you in the media.

“We were very disappointed. We should have been one of the favourites but we weren’t even in the top five. As West Indians we have always been disrespected. As soon as we fight back they make it look like we are the bad one in the media. We’ve experienced these things over the years. So it’s no surprise.”

Gayle describes West Indies’ subsequent victory, winning the World T20 in the final over against England, as Carlos Brathwaite hit Ben Stokes for four successive sixes, as one of the sweetest of his career. The vindication was as raw as the outcome was thrilling: “It meant a lot to us. So many disrespectful things were said and they hurt. But before we got to India the intention was to win the trophy. It’s a great accomplishment.”

His new book charts his tough childhood in Rollington Town, Kingston, and confronts the endemic racism in cricket. Gayle argues that, even in Jamaica, lighter-skinned players are favoured. “It’s reality,” he says. “Even in Jamaica, your own country, coming into youth cricket you need to be from an upscale high school or have a light skin. As you get older you get used to the culture. My club, Lucas Cricket Club, was the only one to accept black people back in the day. So people would say: ‘We can’t have this Chris leading his country. His background doesn’t suit us.’ That’s the reality I faced.”

Gayle is angry with the supposed failure of the Caribbean’s current cricket administrators to support their players. The West Indies Women and Under-19s also won their respective World Cups – but Gayle stresses that tight-knit success on the field occurs despite a chasm between the region’s cricketers and their representatives. “I don’t know what will happen but it’s been going on for years. We’ve just won three trophies in one year. Is it going to be the next jump for West Indies cricket? We still have this obstacle in our way.”


Gayle celebrates his century during the World T20 pool game against England in March. West Indies would go on to beat England again in the final. Photograph: Pal Pillai/IDI via Getty Images

Gayle is a brilliantly destructive batsman and, while he is a dominant star of T20, his book underlines his prowess in all forms. For a player dismissed as “lazy”, “greedy” and contemptuous of cricket history, Gayle has played 103 Tests with a batting average of 42. He is one of only four men to have scored two Test triple centuries. The others are Don Bradman, Brian Lara and Virender Sehwag.

Only Gayle has hit a Test triple century, an ODI double hundred and a T20 international century. He is also the only man to have hit the first ball of a Test match for six – and he once smashed a 30-ball hundred in the IPL. These rollicking scores allow him to purr in print: “Six Machine. World Boss. Universe Boss.”


Chris Gayle’s latest excruciating interview and his startling race remarks

Gayle is more compelling when describing the hard graft underpinning his Test triple hundreds against South Africa and Sri Lanka. “I’m disappointed people don’t recognise what I did in Test cricket. For an opening batsman to get two triple centuries? A lot of greats haven’t got one. So to have those achievements dismissed and just be the King of T20 cricket? It’s good to be called the king of something but to have the most hundreds in ODI cricket for the West Indies? People don’t acknowledge Chris Gayle is the highest run scorer when it comes to centuries. Most people sweep it under the carpet but I’ve proved myself. I’ve played 100 Test matches. I should get credit for that.”

One of the book’s pleasing surprises is to read how his career was inspired by a woman. “Miss Hamilton is a wonderful woman,” Gayle says of the Kingston schoolteacher and his first coach. “She kickstarted things and gave me that self‑belief. Most of the time, as a kid, you’re nervous. She would try to get in your head and give you confidence. She was also our football coach – so she was very talented and to have a woman lead you at a young age was really good.”

Such genuine respect runs contrary to the demeaning way in which he reacted to the Australian journalist Mel McLaughlin who, in early January, tried to interview Gayle after he had scored 41 runs off 15 balls for the Melbourne Renegades in the Big Bash. Gayle ignored her cricketing questions and crooned: “Your eyes are beautiful. Hopefully we can win this game and then we can have a drink after as well. Don’t blush, baby.”

Gayle’s reductive views of women are as damaging as the racism he rightly condemns. He listens to my little speech about his failure to show any professional respect to McLaughlin. “Well, that’s your opinion but they knew the person they are interviewing. They knew the person is like that. So it wasn’t any surprise to anyone. Not even the interviewer, Mel. She knew exactly how the West Indians are.

“It was just a joke. The players are laughing. They know I like to clown around. She knew it as well. She was laughing before the interview and saying: ‘Guys, stop it, stop laughing.’ But you’re a woman in an environment with men. You’re good-looking. What do you expect? People are going to make jokes. I’ve seen people kiss the same Mel on live television. There are double standards. All the commentary guys found it amusing – but then someone whisper in their ears and everything was blown out of proportion.”

Gayle shrugs when asked if he can understand why so many people were dismayed by his treatment of McLaughlin? “Everybody is entitled to their opinion. She got more bad press than me. The public gave her the bad press. She was the one who looked bad – not me.”


The now infamous interview with Channel Ten reporter Mel McLaughlin after a Big Bash T20 League game in Australia in January 2016. Photograph: Channel Ten

He has just nailed the injustice in a few sentences. Earlier in our conversation he lamented that “disrespected” West Indies cricketers are made to look like “the bad one”. Can he not see the cruel parallels when people lambasted McLaughlin – for being a woman? “If she was upset she would’ve said it. At no stage did she say she felt offended by me. Then they wanted an apology and she came on air and said: ‘He’s apologised – so let it go everybody.’ You could tell she had been forced to say those things. Trust me. She’s of West Indian background. She knows the culture. From what I understand her mom is black. What do they call it? Samosa?”

Does he mean Samoan? “Yeah. So she knows. But people put things in her ears – just to slaughter Chris Gayle.”

His daughter is seven weeks old. How would Gayle feel if, in 25 years, she was subjected to the same mocking quips while trying to carve out a journalism career? “If you put yourself there you have to expect that. You have to deal with it. Not all situations are going to be the best. You have to brace yourself. You have to be professional, yes, but expect the unexpected at all times.”

So such blatant sexism could occur again? Gayle smiles. “It could happen to anybody. Anybody. It could happen again.”

Gayle offers a detailed version of meeting Charlotte Edwardes, whose recent interview with him in the Times added to his notoriety. “The first interview I did by the pool. The recorder was on the table. The interview lasted 2½ hours. Basically discussing the book, it went according to plan. But the outcome was very sad. That’s why I say people can’t be trusted – especially you guys.”

At least we both laugh when I say we’re back to lazy stereotyping. “I know. Obviously she came with a different mentality. Even that first interview I did with her she was trying to get me to say things about Shane Warne. I said: ‘Listen, this is not about Shane Warne.’ So the interview was good even if she didn’t get what she wanted.

“I was having dinner by the bar when the agent texted. She’s leaving in the morning and wants to say thanks for the interview. I said: ‘OK, no problem.’ She came by and that’s how it happened. She started telling me her life story. She tried to ask me if I’d ever smoked weed. I said: ‘Listen, I’m a sportsman, how can I do those things?’ So whatever questions she asked me I asked her back. She went on to say she is a single mum. She had also been to a war [zone] and she was telling me that when all the media people come to drink they sleep together. I asked her: ‘Did you do it?’ And she said: ‘No.’ It’s not an interview – we’re talking at the bar. If she had a tape I wish people could hear it.

“In the interview’s first line she says Mel didn’t get the chance to have a drink with Chris Gayle – but she did. That was her agenda. She put these things out to make me look like the bad one. She got the attention but I’m going to speak to my legal team.”


Chris Gayle says success has come at a cost: ‘You can’t put trust in people. There’s no loyalty out there.’ Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian
This chimes with a sentence in his book when, amid the boasts, Gayle says bleakly: “There can be no trust.”

He shrugs. “There’s no sadness in saying that. It’s the reality. You can’t put trust in people. There’s no loyalty out there. You have to be sceptical – regardless of what that person says.”

So success comes at a cost? “Oh yes. You have to get hurt at times to learn from those mistakes – everybody is going to want something from you. But then things are tough and they turn their back on you. Then you know the real people.”

Gayle suggests that even a fancy hotel on the T20 circuit can resemble “a mini-prison. You’re locked away in your room. You just see the ceiling and the TV. You get lonely sometimes.”

For all the IPL’s giddy riches, does he ever miss Test cricket? “No. I don’t miss it.”

Would he ever play another Test? “It’s possible. It could happen next year. If I can strengthen my back and get the body and mind in tune. Once those things are done I’m good to go.”

Asked to outline his remaining ambitions as a 36-year-old cricketer, Gayle grins: “Maybe score another triple century?”

Gayle seems too wedded to the buck‑spinning hoopla of T20 to make a lasting return to Test cricket but we enjoy the idea and, stretching out my hand, I promise to include the full context of our interview. His laughter booms around the empty room. “You always say that …”

Chris Gayle’s Six Machine, published by Penguin, is available at the Guardian Bookshop

www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jun/14/ch...ket#comment-76372209

the guy needs pr rep