Chris Gayle: Idiotic, disrespectful, oafish ... all in a day’s work for female reporters

There’s a lot of good sorts who cover sports. Putting up with boofhead blokes like Chris Gayle is par for the course.

Chris Gayle with Mel McLaughlin on Monday night. Picture: Ten Network.

Maria Sharapova was blushing, baby. She was sitting at a press conference at the Australian Open when a male radio reporter, Lachlan Wills, asked her a question about something or other. She checked Wills out and liked what she saw and ­behaved as though a couple of schooners were on the cards at The Great Northern hotel.

“You have so much self-esteem when you speak,” Sharapova replied. “It’s really nice. What was the question? I was just admiring your form.”

Sharapova didn’t ask the ­talking head to join her for an ale. Nor did she say his eyes were ­limpid pools. She was a high-­profile athlete taking a harmless and rather hilarious shine to a ­reporter of the opposite sex.

The exchange came and went without controversy. Sharapova’s role in the banter was actually rather endearing and unexpected, but the whole lighthearted episode did make you wonder how it might have been portrayed if a male ­player, say a Nick Kyrgios or a ­Bernard Tomic, had made the same remarks to a female interviewer at Melbourne Park.

And then came Chris Gayle to Mel McLaughlin on Monday night. The difference? The subject of ­Sharapova’s affection took no offence. McLaughlin did, according to her boss at the Ten Network.

Gayle was idiotic. Disrespectful. It was a live TV interview, not a Tinder chat. There’s a lot of good sorts who cover sports. Putting up with boofhead blokes is par for the course. One female ESPN editor ­required two security escorts during last year’s Ashes series to protect her from morons in the crowd who wanted to grope her.

Gayle has form with her and most others. Interviewed by a female cricket reporter, he will routinely invite them to continue their discussion at the nearest watering hole. You reckon these journalists enjoy the attention? Try having some pissed dickhead wanting to lick your skin while you’re filming a daily wrap.

The Ten Network’s commentators did McLaughlin no favours, sniggering in the background during the Gayle interview like schoolboys. McLaughlin behaved as though she knew, she just knew, an interview with Gayle would turn out like this.

Initially, it all seemed so dumb and juvenile from everyone other than McLaughlin that when Ten’s main commentator, Mark Howard, apologised for an episode that had just provoked laughter from his own bunker, it seemed merely to prove that Einstein was right about the difference between stupidity and genius being that genius had its limits.

Gayle’s saving grace was that he could apologise the following day. Perhaps a harmless, brief, Sharapova-esque flirtation had simply gone wrong. Unlikely as it seemed for a player turned playa, perhaps he was racked with remorse. Two sides to every yarn, right? Perhaps Gayle deserved the chance to ­clarify his position before he was tweeted to death. All he had to do was say sorry to McLaughlin and the viewers he offended. He arrived at Melbourne airport and only made it worse.

By 10.45am, McLaughlin’s boss had made it clear she was angry and upset. The landscape changed right then. Gayle should have felt deep remorse when he was told that. He should have gone out of his way to express it. But he could not be bothered removing one of his music-playing earpieces. He rolled his eyes. He cut reporters off, played the smart arse.

If Monday night was a snippet of Gayle’s spoilt oafishness, yesterday’s performance at Tullamarine might have presented the full picture. “Can you be quiet and let me finish?” he snapped at one reporter. The whole thing was “a simple joke”, he said. Entertainment. No harm was intended, he said. All blown out of proportion.

Asked by another female journalist why McLaughlin should be made to feel uncomfortable while doing her job, Gayle told everyone to have a good day and headed for the exit. Perhaps it should be for good.

Chris Rogers gave him a baking on ABC radio. They played together at Sydney Thunder when Gayle was very Austin Powers, baby. Very unprofessional. Calls were made for Gayle to be kicked out of the Big Bash altogether.

Cricket Australia boss James Sutherland said you were delusional if you thought the incident should be dismissed.

“I don’t think at the end of all this Chris will be under any illusions as to what we think of it,” Sutherland said. “I don’t think anyone should be put in the position Mel McLaughlin was put in. It’s not a nightclub. One of those things that hasn’t dawned on everyone is it’s a workplace. It’s Chris Gayle’s workplace, it’s also Mel McLaughlin’s workplace and those sorts of comments border on harassment.”

The good sorts covering sports? They’re no different to the good sorts in every walk of life. Often they’re treated with sincere respect. Often they’re subjected to a boneheaded strain of the male species who find humour in harassing and humiliating them.

Lewd comments. Disgusting propositions. Gawking. Stalking. McLaughlin should be embarrassed by nothing. The footage spoke for itself. The interviewer was class. Sharapova knew her male reporter would be stoked to be singled out. Gayle had no such knowledge.

The interviewee was crass. Gayle’s conduct and lack of contrition was punished by a $10,000 fine. Not enough. He should have been suspended. He failed to understand a few things about Australians. We appreciate stuff-ups happen. We’re prepared to listen to an apology. Without the appropriate apology, however, you are on your own. You’re not in Jamaica now, baby.