Gayle should have acted differently – Dujon
RETIRED WINDIES wicketkeeper Jeffrey Dujon has described as “sad” the bitterness with which batting star Chris Gayle is coming to the end of his career.
His assessment was made after Gayle posted videos on his YouTube channel, in which he ranted on former Windies teammate and current assistant coach of the Jamaica Tallawahs, Ramnaresh Sarwan, and accused him of playing a major part in the franchise not retaining him for the 2020 Caribbean Premier League (CPL).
The 40-year-old Gayle, who was signed by the St Lucia Zouks after being released by his home franchise, used terms such as “snake” and “vindictive” to describe Sarwan.
“It’s not nice when people are at the end of their careers and there is that much bitterness,” Dujon said on the Mason and Guest radio programme here Tuesday night.
“It’s sad when someone, people who have been outstanding in one way or another, end their careers on a sour note like that, but that’s the world today. People have the social media, they have the platforms to speak their minds and people seem to be more inclined to do so these days.”
NOTHING NEW
The 63-year-old commentator said, however, that disputes such as these were nothing new, but were now amplified because of the social media age.
“This is not the first time that something like this has happened, this goes way back … . But in those days, people didn’t have the media like they have now to voice their opinions, and back in those days I suppose we were a different generation anyway,” he said, stressing that “it goes without saying” that he would not have approached the situation in the way his fellow Jamaican had.
Dujon advocated engaging in more dialogue to resolve problems, but conceded that the airing of dirty laundry in public is a “symptom of the world we live in today”.
“In the sense that, to a large extent, we have lost the art of conversation. It’s more texting and tweeting and all this sort of thing, and they just don’t see the need to sit down and talk to each other,” the former wicketkeeper/ batsman said.
Gayle had been particularly harsh in his public criticism of Sarwan, saying that he wanted nothing more to do with him. He also spoke about the Tallawahs management, saying that they had been “playing games” with him, instead of being up front about dropping him from the squad.
But the franchise management and ownership issued a statement Wednesday saying that the decision to part ways with Gayle was only about “business and cricketing reasoning” and Sarwan was not involved.