Dwayne Smith admits sending ‘sexy’ text to Australian massage therapist

Dwayne Smith, West Indies cricketer, made the admission during a defamation case hearing in Sydney, launched by his teammate Chris Gayle.

West Indies cricketer Dwayne Smith has admitted sending a text message which included the word ‘sexy’ to an Australian female massage therapist, at a time when the Caribbean team was based in Sydney during the ICC World Cup 2015.

Dwayne Smith admitted sending such a text message only after he was shown a copy of it (Sportsfile via Getty Images)

According to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald, Smith admitted sending such a text message only after he was shown a copy of it. Before that, the West Indies cricketer had denied sending such a message.

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Smith made his admission during a hearing at a Sydney court — a case in which his West Indies teammate Chris Gayle has sued Australia’s Fairfax media for defamation over a series of articles that were published in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times from January 6-9, 2016.

Matthew Collins, the barrister for Australia’s Fairfax Media asked Smith during the hearing if he had texted the word ‘sexy’ to the female therapist. In his reply, Smith said, “I don’t recall.”

Smith said he would have sent the message to the therapist only a ‘minute before’ when she was massaging him at the InterContinental Hotel in Sydney. When asked if he was trying to protect his teammate Gayle, Smith said, “What I said is true”.

Gayle was alleged to have exposed himself to the female Australian massage therapist while he was in the West Indies dressing room, with Smith also being present.

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In his defamation case, Gayle has said that the allegations on him were ‘heart-breaking’ and were the ‘most hurtful’ he had come across in his life.

The incident, according to the report, is believed to have happened on February 11, 2017, at a training facility in Drummoyne, Sydney.

The court also heard that the then team operations manager, former cricketer Sir Richie Richardson had sent an email on February 12, 2015, telling the West Indies team members that the female massage therapist “encountered a few uncomfortable situations with members of the team”. He reminded them to treat her with respect.

On his part, Smith has denied either reading or receiving such an email.