Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo

After South Africa endured Chris Gayle’s wrath on the field, the West Indian selectors were next in line to feel the full force of a Gayle storm when he lashed out at them for not including all-rounders Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo in the World Cup squad.

Gayle stated that it was “ridiculous” to see two of the best all-rounders in the Caribbean snubbed, and even went as far as saying that the duo had been “victimised”.

“How can those two guys not be in the team,” Gayle said. “To me it got to be like victimisation when you look at it towards those two guys. Come on, guys. It is just ridiculous. Come on. Ridiculous. Really hurt. Ridiculous. Honestly, it throws me off. We can only talk. We can express our feelings which I’m doing at this point in time. The squad already is announced. It is just sad.

“It is a big batting line-up when you look at our team. But it’s just disappointing when you look at the 50-over format – we won’t be at our strongest. We don’t have our strongest team without Pollard [and] Bravo. So that is actually sad for us. It is a really a big blow for us to actually lose two key players, two key all-rounders as well, [who are] very good in the outfield. I don’t know what’s the history behind it, but it is ridiculous selection from my point of view.

“Bravo said to me, to be honest with you, the team they selected for the World Cup is actually to re-build for the next World Cup, which I can’t understand. Basically what they are telling us: we are not going to win the World Cup [but] build for the next World Cup which is really ridiculous.”

After entertaining the crowds in Cape Town and Johannesburg with knocks of 77 and 90 in the first two Twenty20 Internationals, Gayle stated that he was ecstatic to be able to dedicate the series win to Bravo and Pollard.

“I don’t know where our cricket is actually going to…where we are heading with this sort of situation,” he said. “But it is really sad. Actually we won the [Twenty20] series with our best team and now there will be changes, with two of our biggest players in ODI cricket not involved in the 50-over format and the World Cup. It really hurts but I’m really, really glad that we won the series for Pollard and Bravo.”