Jamaica Tallawahs skipper Chris Gayle has been fined by the Hero Caribbean Premier League for his side's slow over rate against the Trinbago Knight Riders at Sabina Park, Kingston, on Friday.
TKR hit a CPL franchise-record 267 for two against the Tallawahs, as New Zealander Colin Munro (96 not out) and Lendl Simmons (86) belted half-centuries. With the ball being hit to all parts of the ground, Gayle tried to slow down things on several occasions as he chatted with his bowlers and adjusted the field to prevent the onslaught from TKR, who eventually went on to win the match by 41 runs.
In a statement yesterday, however, the CPL said the Tallawahs were charged with a breach of Article 2.5 of the CPL Code of Conduct for minimum over rates. It said the charge of being one over down was laid by the match officials against Gayle.
It added that this was the second such charge against, Tallawahs also having done the same against TKR when the two teams meet at the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain on September 6.
As a result of this breach, the CPL said Gayle was fined under Section 4.2 of the Code of Conduct and the Tallawahs were also penalised with a 0.05 reduction in their net run rate.
This could be critical to Tallawahs, who are currently languishing at the bottom of the CPL table with just two points from five matches and now with a net run rate of -0.982. Net run rate is currently used as the tiebreaker should teams end up on the same points heading into the playoffs.
