Mark Nicholas offers apology to Darren Sammy over pre-tournament comments

TV presenter and columnist Mark Nicholas has apologised to West Indies skipper Darren Sammy for calling his team 'short of brains'.

In a column which he wrote for a prominent cricket website previewing the 6th edition of the World Twenty20, Nicholas had written, "Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh are short of class but will cope okay with the conditions. West Indies are short of brains but have IPL history in their ranks."

On the eve of the final encounter against England, Sammy had revealed to the media about how this kind of comment had hurt them and spurred them on to produce their best cricket. In his latest column for the same website, though, the former England cricketer has offered a heartfelt apology to the West Indian captain and his team.

Mark Nicholas started off by congratulating both the men's and women's team for their success. "The first thing is to loudly applaud West Indies cricket on a golden day. The women were magnificent. The men more than matched them," he wrote.

He praised the brand of cricket the West Indies are playing by stating, "The second thing is to say that the West Indies cricketers who beat England in Kolkata yesterday and triumphantly lifted the World T20 play smart cricket that is both entertaining and hard to resist."

"The third is to offer an unreserved apology to Darren Sammy, a man I hold in the highest regard, to his team and to the coaches around them for the throwaway phrase I used in a recent column on these pages. I would have made the same apology whatever the results of the day, but I do so now in the knowledge that the people of the Caribbean will have celebrated long into the night and well into today," said Nicholas seeking forgiveness for his words.

The popular cricket commentator clarified that he meant something else and it ended up sounding different. "I did not say West Indies were "brainless" or had "no brains", as has been misquoted elsewhere, but I did say something unworthy of the game and disrespectful to a great cricketing legacy.

"My thought was based a) on what I had seen in Australia, first during the World Cup and then during the recent Test matches against the Australians, when the admirable Jason Holder received scant support from influential players around him, and then b) on the fact that many West Indians know their way around the IPL, which must be useful. But it was a throwaway, not a considered judgement, and frankly, pretty damn lazy because it did not take account of the different personnel," Nicholas further clarified.

Mark Nicholas emphasised on his apology by concluding, "I regret it and apologise for it."