Darren Sammy launches defence of Chris Gayle after latest allegations of sexism: 'He is just a target to sell newspapers'

'You have people coming to him and asking him those sorts of questions knowing what the answer will be'

Darren Sammy has defended West Indies team-mate Chris Gayle after recent criticism for off-field events

For a man who plays comparatively little cricket, Chris Gayle spends a lot of time hogging the cricket headlines.

He was at it again this week following an interview he gave to a female journalist in The Times magazine on Saturday.

Containing more innuendo than the average Carry On film, it reconfirmed the suspicion that Gayle’s attitude to almost everything outside of the sport is distinctly questionable.

Gayle made a string of lewd and sexist comments in the interview, boasting that he had “the biggest bat in the wooooorld,”" and saw it fit to ask the interviewer “how many black men she had slept with”.

His international captain, Darren Sammy, however, has launched a defence of the player.

The all-rounder Sammy captained the West Indies to their extraordinary triumph over England at the Twenty20 World Cup back in April and is now at Hampshire for the country’s T20 Blast campaign, which begins against Middlesex at Uxbridge on Friday evening.

Speaking to The Independent, Sammy believes that Gayle has become an easy target for headline writers and insists that the world’s most belligerent batsman deserves respect and not ridicule.

“Chris Gayle is an entertainer,” he says. “Too much is expected of him. He’s my team-mate and I have a lot of respect for him.

"Chris Gayle is just a target to sell newspapers, especially now.

“You have people coming to him and asking him those sorts of questions knowing what the answer will be.

“Cricket needs people like him, that’s why he is the World Boss, sorry, the Universe Boss! He’s an entertainer.

"A lot us see the outside of Chris Gayle and don’t know the man himself. You need to take the time to discover the history of where he has come from, where most of our cricketers in the Caribbean have come from. They’ve come from nothing.”

Sammy points to the heart scare and consequent surgery Gayle underwent 11 years ago as one of the key turning points in his life.

Gayle suffered an irregular heartbeat in the Second Test between the West Indies and Australia in Hobart in November 2005.

He retired hurt and went under the knife in Melbourne just days later.

“Chris decided on his life when his heart almost stopped on him,” says Sammy.

“He decided he was going to enjoy every single day of his life. From then on, he decided that every day from that day on he was going to enjoy life to the full.”

He certainly seems to be making good that promise.

Sammy, meanwhile, has done more than most to put a smile on the face of a Caribbean public that has grown tired of the failings of the West Indies side.

Sammy’s side won the T20 World Cup final in Kolkata from a seemingly impossible situation to provide a massive shot in the arm for cricket in the Caribbean.

Ben Stokes – who underwent surgery for a knee injury on Tuesday - was England’s fall guy, conceding four successive sixes in the game’s final over as Carlos Brathwaite made hay to seal the game in unbelievable fashion.

Ben Stokes has a big part to play in the future of the England side, believes Sammy

“I feel for Ben Stokes, I wish him a successful recovery from his surgery because England can’t afford for him not to be playing cricket,” says Sammy.

“What was I thinking in that over? I was saying that we needed three sixes. Everybody was saying ‘damn, we need three sixes’.

"In the end we didn’t get three, we got four. It was one of those moments that will always go down in history.

"To hit four sixes in a row to win a World Cup - well, it’s the sort of thing you dream of. When you’re a part of it, it becomes even better.”

While the West Indies currently sit on top of the world in the game’s shortest format, it’s their dwindling fortunes in the Test arena that elicit most regret, particularly from a generation that grew up watching the likes of Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Desmond Haynes and Viv Richards dominate international cricket.

Sammy is generally confident about the future of the sport in the Caribbean but concedes that the West Indies’ road back to success in the Test arena may take far longer than many would like.

“We need to find a way to help produce Test cricketers,” he says. “That doesn’t start now, that starts from the grassroots and developing a structure that they can thrive in. It’s going to take time.

"The reality is that T20 is our strongpoint now. If we could get the right teams playing in T20 and one-day cricket whilst we develop our Test cricket, introducing youngsters who can continue to learn at the highest level, then we’ll be winning World Cups in the shorter formats with players who can graduate into the Test side.

“I see a future but it’s going to take some time. Look at England, they’ve got a good structure, that’s why they’re successful.

"The under-19s, the England Lions, the county set-up, it’s a good structure. Unlike us in the Caribbean.”