Mark Nicholas has unconditionally apologized to Darren Sammy, victorious West Indies captain, and his players over his comments that said that the Caribbean  cricketers are "short of brains". These comments were written by the former England cricketer in his column for ESPNCricinfo, before the beginning of World T20 2016.

Earlier, emotional and angry Sammy cleared that the remarks from Nicholas was not in good taste to the team. He also said that it it spurred the team during thrilling final win in World T20 against England.

In defence, Nicholas said that he didn’t term West Indies as "brainless", yet admitted that he wrote something that is not worthy of the game and disrespectful to a great cricketing legacy.

Nicholas wrote, "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. The spirit of the romantics will be with them and from thousands of miles away the rest of us can almost taste the rum, feel its punch and dream of the day when we return to the lapping shores of those incomparable islands."

"Clearly, the West Indies team is not "short of brains". I wrote this in a piece that was mainly about India and MS Dhoni and, partly tongue in cheek, exaggerated a likely "triumph" - as in the ancient history of the Roman Empire. In picking a winner, I could see no further than the hosts.

“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," wrote Nicholas. "I regret it and apologize for it."

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- Sumana