Chris Gayle fires back heavily at criticisers

Chris Gayle is man who doesn’t hold himself back. Five months after highly dramatic and controversial moment with Channel 10’s Mel McLaughlin at the last Big Bash League during a live sideline interview, Gayle has come back hard at the ones who tried to bog him down during that time. In an extract published in The Times, Gayle has played down the controversial comments he made towards McLaughlin and clarified his stance.

“Now T20 is different. It’s not Test cricket. It’s chilled and fun and let’s do things different. So when Mel asks me that question I stay in the T20 mind, and answer informal and fun,” Gayle wrote, “I meant it as a joke. I meant it as a little fun. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful and I didn’t mean it to be taken serious.”

The act was marked derogatory and he faced a heavy $10,000 fine from his club, the Melbourne Renegades. One of those former teammates was Rogers, who played alongside Gayle for the Sydney Thunder in the second edition of the BBL, who had tried to remind him of some moral codes at time of the incident.

“I was very wary of the role he was setting for the younger guys, and I spoke to them quite a bit about it – ‘do you think this is good behaviour, would you do this kind of thing?’” Rogers told ABC in January. This is a pattern of behaviour. If you know the guy, you see it over and over.”

The Jamaican had a firm reply for him. “Chris Rogers, how can you claim that when it was you and me at the bar most nights?,” Gayle wrote, “I’m not a snitch, but I’ve heard from your own mouth what you’ve done. Next time you want to open your mouth, maybe chew on a carrot instead.”

Rogers was not the only Australian targeted in Gayle’s autobiography, with former Australian skipper Ian Chappell had also criticized Gayle and had requested a global cricket ban to be imposed on him.

“Ian Chappell, calling for me to be banned worldwide. Ian Chappell, a man who was once convicted of unlawful assault in the West Indies for punching a cricket official. Ian Chappell, how can you ban the Universe Boss? You’d have to ban cricket itself.”

The strongest scold was for Andrew Flintoff. Gayle said that Freddie’s opinion were apparently not worth. He targeted the English all-rounder over his revelation last year that he was once run out while batting for England because he used Viagra the night before.

Following Gayle’s interview with McLaughlin, Flintoff tweeted “Big fan of @henrygayle but made himself look a bit of a chop there.”

Well played @Mel_Mclaughlin !! Big fan of @henrygayle but made himself look a bit of a chop there @tensporttv #bbl05

— andrew flintoff (@flintoff11) January 4, 2016

“This coming from a man who admitted he took Viagra during a Test match. Freddie Flintstone, a young boy like you taking Viagra? Don’t lecture me. The only chop Freddie knows is when he used to bowl short to me and I would chop him past backward point for four.”