Chris Gayle - trial by media

After another stunning knock for the Melbourne Renegades, international T20 player Chris Gayle was pulled up boundary side and interviewed by Network Ten sports reporter Mel McLaughlin. While people will draw their own conclusions over Gayle's remarks, I thought they were made in jest with a smile on his face. He livened up what was bound to be another boring interview.

Ironically, Mel is now taking on-air interviews over the incident becoming a bit of a celebrity herself, reporters will soon have a higher profile than the players. Others will call it sexist and while I disagree with them, that is their opinion. There was threats of booting him out of the BBL before he was fined $10,000 by Cricket Australia in what I thought was a purely reactive response.

Now Fairfax Media dredges up an old story from last year before the World Cup where it was alleged Gayle exposed himself to a woman in the change rooms after walking out of a shower after a training session. The incident was reported to team management at the time as the woman who was employed by the team claimed she was looking for a sandwich. Jumping on the bandwagon, Fairfax Media want a beat-up story to create media momentum to sell newspapers.

In a case of he said/she said, now another investigation will be conducted with the ICC taking a backward step not wanting to become involved. Gayle has had enough and has now stated his intention to sue Fairfax Media for defamation - yeah. So unless further witnesses suddenly appear or video evidence arises - there is no case.

Maybe Cricket Australia should yank all the mics from the players on the ground with all media releases to go through a team communications manager with no coaching or playing staff to front the media. The networks should lose their unlimited access to the players - they will no longer be able to do a hatchet job on players like Gayle.

This is an over-reaction for a sport trying desperately trying to attract women viewers, this is the first year of a televised women's BBL and they don't want to alienate potential women viewers. The women's BBL is good and people will watch the league regardless - no need to make Gayle the fall guy for some off-the-cuff remarks made on the boundary line.