Not retaining Gayle had nothing to do with Sarwan: Tallawahs

Caribbean Premier League side (CPL) Jamaica Tallawahs has said that former batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan had nothing to do with star batter Chris Gayle not being retained by the franchise.

Things turned sour between former West Indies teammates Sarwan and Gayle as the latter blasted the former middle-order batsman and went on to the extent of calling him a snake.

Gayle wasn't retained by Jamaica Tallawahs and the southpaw alleged it was because of Sarwan who created differences between him and the franchise.

"Gayle gave several reasons for the decision that was made not to retain him in the Tallawahs. However, the truth is that this decision was made collectively by the Ownership and Management team which did not include Ramnaresh Sarwan and based purely on business and cricketing reasoning," Jamaica Tallawahs said in a statement on their official website.

"Further, the ownership and management of the Tallahwas have no political affiliation with any political organization in any country of the Caribbean," the statement read.

Gayle had claimed that Sarwan wanted to take control of the franchise and that is why he engineered Gayle's ouster from the team.

"Sarwan, you are worse than the coronavirus right now," Gayle had said in the video uploaded on his YouTube channel.

Gayle played his first four CPL seasons with Tallawahs before turning out for St. Kitts and Nevis Patriots in the next two seasons respectively.

He returned to Tallawahs the previous season as a marquee player before his alleged fall-out with the franchise that saw him join St. Lucia Zouks for the next season.