Chris Gayle is not a fan of co-hosting ICC events

Barbados: Outspoken Chris Gayle urged the International Cricket Council to consider doing away with the concept of co-hosts, a move the West Indian legend said would actually benefit the countries more than a split format.

This edition of the World Cup was played in the United States of America and the West Indies, with India competing in Group A across both regions.

“It’s good that the World Cup was held in these regions, but I wish the World Cup was held in either one place or the other,” Southpaw said Friday night. “A country should have a fair chance to host the World Cup. Instead of doing it like this. I don’t know the reason for it, but it should stop. However, I think it’s good for the US. They needed it. It would be nice if the US hosted the World Cup itself and also made it more profitable. It’s a very big market.”

“In the Caribbean, we need to develop our cricketers, that’s why we need these big events. We need to earn back the love of the people,” he added.

Gayle, who has a long-standing relationship with Virat Kohli in the Indian Premier League with Royal Challengers Bangalore, insisted that he would prove himself at some point and that this event and the way he played here would not tarnish his legacy.

“This sort of thing happens to superstars like Virat. He has been so dominant in so many World Cups. This could happen to anyone. The good thing is that he is in the final and sometimes big players step up on the big days, they win when it matters and you can’t write him off. We know how special he is. We just have to wait and see how special he is in the final,” he said. “But the real point is that even if he has a bad tournament, it doesn’t matter. He has done so much for cricket for so long. This is not going to damage his reputation or anything like that. He is the man. That is not going to change.”

In typical Gayle fashion, he also said that he had shown these batsmen how to handle these wickets. Given the nature of the pitches in America, it was difficult for the batsmen to get going. Some were extremely dangerous (USA) and others were slow and it was difficult to get the timing right.

“Yeah, I wish I was there to show them how it’s done (laughs). I certainly wouldn’t blame the wicket,” he said. “It was definitely a low-scoring World Cup, the wicket was a bit slower at times and suffered a bit. But the bowler has to get the upper hand from time to time, so that’s good. But I think Barbados probably has the best T20 wicket in the Caribbean in this World Cup. The wickets in the States were also a bit jet-lagged (drop-in pitches delivered from Adelaide) (laughs), they were tired almost all the time and didn’t have time to recover properly. That’s why there were so few scores there.”

Gayle spoke about the West Indies’ failure to make it past the Super Eight stage, noting that they made some mistakes in team selection and did not use their experience as well as they could have.

“That’s essentially down to me, I have to sit down and call a general meeting to explain it,” he said when asked if he would speak to the players. “These guys are experienced players, they’re seasoned players. Some of them have played two or three World Cups. It’s not like we’ve got a lot of young players coming up. We’re very experienced. They’ve played good cricket and won some series as well in the lead up to the World Cup. They’ve played good cricket but they’ve made some mistakes. You’ve got to keep your cool in big events, you’ve got to hold on to certain players and give them an advantage, that’s where the inconsistency comes in. That’s really cost us our progress.

“One such decision would be in the game against South Africa. Johnson Charles was not used in that crucial game. They messed it up. They didn’t do it right,” he added.