(Barbados Nation) Rift? What rift?
Ottis Gibson certainly doesn’t know of any.
West Indies’ head coach has categorically denied the existence of a row between him and senior players Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan following the regional side’s humiliating exit from the World Cup.
Gibson was responding to the rumoured divide after he said his veteran players didn’t perform following the team’s ten-wicket quarter-final defeat to Pakistan.
“There’s no row between anybody,” assured Gibson during the launch of the Digicel Youth Cricket Development Programme at Kensington Oval yesterday.
“I went in a Press conference and I made some comments that have been taken out of context, reported in a different fashion.
“Basically what I said was that our senior players didn’t perform to the level that was expected [and] that’s all there is to say about that.”
Two weeks ago, West Indies crashed out of the World Cup after making a paltry 112 in their quarter-final encounter against Pakistan.
In that contest, Gayle managed only eight runs at the top of the order, while Sarwan added 24, with Chanderpaul scoring a pedestrian 44 from 106 balls in his recall.It was the team’s third straight batting collapse, prompting Gibson to say those players needed to take their “share of the blame after not living up to expectations in the tournament”.
Rumours of a rift in the camp then swirled when Gayle responded via Twitter by saying: “It is easy to blame the senior players, but difficult to accept the truth!!! Curse me, blame me!!!!”
But Gibson downplayed the situation as statements being taken out of context.“
I’m sure we were all disappointed at the way we exited the World Cup,” explained Gibson for both sets of comments. “
Let me say I never publicly expressed displeasure at anybody.”
However, speculation has been rife over those players’ future with the senior team after Gibson said it was hard to say whether they’ve played their last game when questioned about Gayle, Sarwan and Chanderpaul in that same Press conference.
And the non-selection of the latter two for the upcoming T20 series against Pakistan has only further stoked the rumours.
“They’re still West Indies players,” Gibson said of the three. “We’re not in a position where we can afford to discard our best players [but] everyone has to understand that whatever we do is built around performance.
“When you perform, there is no discussion [but] if you don’t perform you have to be made aware of that [because] you’re responsible to the team and West Indies cricket.”
Gibson went on to explain the youthful nature of the current T20 squad as an opportunity to expose some young players with an eye to build for future World Cups.
“Hopefully, this gives us a sense of where we are going in terms of the players we have available to us,” he said.
“We’re trying as best as we can to give other people opportunities and not saying that the senior players are finished. But we’re trying to give ourselves as many options for the next T20 World Cup.”
