Unresolved Chris Gayle issue reveals glaring institutional breakdown

Thursday, February 02, 2012

Dear Editor,

The impasse between the West Indies Cricket Board of Control (the Board) and Mr Chris Gayle has dragged on for too long. I do not know of another country in which a dispute between the administrator of a sport and that country's leading player has lasted as long as this one has without resolution. This is not a record of which we in the Commonwealth Caribbean can be proud. The failure to resolve it signals a dangerous apathy and malaise as well as a very glaring institutional breakdown in the region.

My information is that the board has said that before Mr Gayle can be considered for selection to the West Indies team, he must make an apology for remarks he made in a radio interview. While there is no doubt about what Mr Gayle said in the interview, there is controversy about the events leading up to the interview. In any attempt to find a resolution to the dispute, those events are as critically important as Mr Gayle's comments in the interview. What is at issue is Mr Gayle's right to be treated fairly. It is more than regrettable that to date there has been no independent, third-party determination of "the facts" of the case, including the events leading up to the interview and no independent, third-party determination of wrongdoing by Mr Gayle. In the absence of such a determination, it becomes difficult to understand the sanction of a required apology. And if a sanction is necessary, does it have to be one as extreme as a required apology? Other sanctions open to the board - this again on the assumption that there is some finding of wrongdoing by Mr Gayle - include a fine or suspension. As Mr Gayle has perhaps no more than five more years of good cricket at the Test level, there is all the more reason why a serious effort should be made to resolve the dispute, thereby ensuring that the West Indies' best batsman is available to support a West Indies team which is clearly in need of all the assistance it can receive.

In light of the above, I make two proposals for the resolution of the dispute. These proposals proceed on the basis that there are strengths and weaknesses in the stance of both sides, that both want the best for West Indies cricket, and that the interests of West Indies cricket must be the paramount consideration in any endeavour to resolve this impasse. I take it that these are inarguable, non-controversial, fundamental bases and that they are accepted as such by both parties.

First, the board should give Mr Gayle the option of making an apology. This is different from requiring him to make an apology. It would then be for Mr Gayle to decide whether to make the apology; if made, Mr Gayle should be readmitted to West Indies cricket.

Second, if that is not acceptable to the parties, I propose that there be an agreement between the board and Mr Gayle for an exchange of letters, in which each party would set out its own understanding of the facts that form the basis of the dispute, explaining how it has been wronged by the other party. Neither party would be allowed to seek an amendment of the other's statement of the facts. Once the letters have been exchanged, there will be another exchange of letters in which each party will write the other saying, "I understand your position", whereupon Mr Gayle would be readmitted into West Indies cricket.

In any event, if neither proposal is considered feasible, the matter should be taken up at the level of the Jamaica Cricket Board of Control, the Ministry of Sports and Caricom. Indeed, the latter should see it as its responsibility to be a broker in the resolution of this dispute.

West Indies cricket is too important to the psyche and identity of our people for it to continue to be mired in this unresolved dilemma, which may even appear to some to be reminiscent of how differences were treated in an earlier age.

Patrick Robinson

The Hague

The Netherlands

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Unresolved Chris Gayle issue reveals glaring institutional breakdown