she was not treated like a professional while she was performing her duties in a professional manner.
Well if she wanted to be treated like a professional she could join a profession.
But you're dreaming if you think that male doctors are not hit on by female patients, and that female doctors are never hit on by male patients.
The way Gayle treated her was condescending. Instead of treating her like a professional reporter, he treated her like a bimbo at the pub whose questions were to be treated with contempt. His response (or compliment in your twisted view) was the ultimate disrespect.
Why is the "bimbo" (you have not defined this term and what you mean by it) at the pub allowed to be hit on by undesirables as she works behind the bar for stuff all wages but not the sidleline reporter doing "light interviews" from the sidelines of a broadcast criket product. They're bother in the entertainment business and are both entertainers. Difference is, Gayle understands this fact.
Sure the bar maid may take some men home, date others, enjoy the attention and compliments from others with no interest in them, or just find some guys creepy and wrong altogether and hope that she can get them kicked out for some reason before they grope and molest her. But why is the bar maid not entitled to be treated with the same dignity that you say Mel deserves and not be told that she is pretty and be hit on?
There's a time and place for dickhead behaviour like that, and during a live game of cricket is neither the time, nor the place.
Imagine how many more dates you could have been on if you thought differently. I'm not sure being interviewed 30 seconds after being dismissed is a proper ideal time and place, but asking someone out during the cricket, hell yeah - no problem with that at all. As they perform open heart surgery - maybe not.
If it was such a compliment, you'd think Mel would've appreciated it. Yet she didn't. That in itself explains how it was most definitely not a compliment.
This is your argujment in syllogism form:
P1 - Mel appreciates all such a compliments
P2 - Mel did not appreciate the comment.
C1 - Therefore Gayle did not deliver a compliment.
Your problem is in P1. You have begged the question whether Mel does appreciate all such compliments from all persons.
I have said above, I have an issue with her for behaving that way to the compliment. I believe it was a compliment to Mel that she is pretty, and not inappropriate in a troglodytic bogan manner of "oi sweet tits, I wanna f*ck ya. Even then, I bet some female reporters can just own that situation in a light hearted manner.
I agree that Mel did not appreciate the compliment. I further think that she did not handle the situation well at all.
Therefore, I conclude that Mel is not a confident woman.
We can debate the appropriate or inappropriateness of the compliment for eternity. But wherever we disagree on the spectrum of appropriateness, I believe it was not so bad for her to have behaved in the manner she did.
She did not perform her role well. I expected better than a "I DIDN'T BLUSH" and awkwardly go straight back to cricket talk.