No play for Gayle

No play for Gayle
Associated Press / Ross Setford, File

West Indies star batsman Chris Gayle has been blanked from playing with the Melbourne Renegades for this year’s Big Bash League in Australia.

The franchise confirmed they had decided to focus their attention elsewhere for the coming season, ruling out any possibility of Gayle being part of the lineup.

Renegades chief executive officer Stuart Coventry said, “we’ll unveil our international signings soon but Gayle isn’t part of those plans.”

The move by the Renegades comes on the heels of the latest sexist controversy involving Gayle recently.

In an interview with journalist Charlotte Edwards published in the Times newspaper in England recently, Gayle is quoted as saying he has “a very, very big bat, the biggest in the world.”

“You think you could lift it. You need two hands,” he added.

Edwards also said Gayle asked her how many black men she has “had” and also inquired if she had even been involved in a “threesome.”

The interview sparked another controversy against the “don’t blush” scandal during the Big Bash last January, for which he was reprimanded and fined for his contentious comments with another female television reporter.