Ramnarine responsible for Gayle-Board stand-off: WICB

The West Indies Cricket Board has blamed the interfering attitude of country's players association president Dinanath Ramnarine as one of the reasons why the reconciliation meeting between out-of-favour opener Chris Gayle and the WICB ended in stalemate.

According to the West Indies Cricket Board, Ramnarine, in pushing the agenda of Gayle, refused to accept the WICB's view that the player is an employee of the board, and that correspondence with him should be made directly, and not necessarily to his representative organisation, in this case WIPA.

"The meeting with Gayle ended in uncertainity, as Mr Ramnarine insisted that the WICB had no business writing to players, and that under no circumstances should the WICB be writing to Gayle, or any player for that matter," the Jamaica Star quoted a media release issued by WICB as saying.

"It is his (Ramnarine) view that the players are not in the employees of the WICB," it added.

The statement from the WICB further added that Gayle's comments was unbecoming of a professional sportsman and had a detrimental effect on the relationship with the West Indies team management.

"WICB is of the view that his (Gayle's) comments had a detrimental effect on the relationship with the West Indies team management and the WICB management. It was also unbecoming for a professional sportsman, who would be desirous of playing within that same team environment.

"The Gayle team (however)did not share this view, and articulated their position that Gayle's conduct was a response to how he felt the board treated him, and had tarnished his name and reputation," the release said.

In the four-hour long meeting, Gayle was accompanied by Ramnarine and WIPA vice-president Wavell Hinds, while the WICB was represented by its CEO Earnest Hilaire, cricket director Tony Howard, head coach Ottis Gibson and manager Richie Richardson.

A source privy to the development inside said the meeting turned out to be so acrimonious that Ramnarine at one stage was close to assaulting Hilaire.

The meeting, which was requested by the WICB, was called to address statements made by Gayle in a recent radio interview in which he blasted members of WICB and West Indies management and coaching staff.

During the meeting, WIPA wanted the WICB to facilitate the left-hander's return to the national team and to treat the comments made by the batsman in an interview to a Jamaican radio channel as his personal opinion.

WICB, on their part, believed that Gayle had overstepped his brief and needed to retract his statement to restore the board's dignity.

Another major issue was that the WICB did not consider Gayle for captaincy because he did not sign the retainer contract with the board, while the player felt his not signing the contract shouldn't have affected his captaincy.

The board, however, was adamant that it is important for a player to be part of the retainer contracts to be named captain.