Pooran says he has no plans of coming out of retirement

For­mer West In­dies T20 star, Nicholas Pooran, says he has no plans of com­ing out of re­tire­ment to play for the re­gion­al side in next month’s ICC T20 World Cup.

The 29-year-old wick­et­keep­er/bats­man has re­vealed that he al­so has no re­grets about re­tir­ing from in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et, in­sist­ing the de­ci­sion was made in his best in­ter­est.

Pooran shocked the world last June when he an­nounced his sud­den re­tire­ment from in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et af­ter play­ing 106 T20Is and 61 One Day In­ter­na­tion­als for the West In­dies.

“From all my tri­als and tribu­la­tions, I’ve worked so hard and I feel like I think through all the de­ci­sions I make be­cause I un­der­stand it has con­se­quences. I un­der­stand that peo­ple are go­ing to be an­gry and dis­ap­point­ed in any de­ci­sion any­body makes,” Pooran said on the Beard Be­fore Wick­et pod­cast.

“This has noth­ing to do with West In­dies crick­et, how it is, what it is, what’s hap­pen­ing — this has noth­ing to do with that. This is all about what Nico­las Pooran wants, and this is some­thing every­one has to come on board with as well.

“I know I would have dis­ap­point­ed peo­ple, and that’s al­so fine and not fine in some cas­es, but peo­ple have to re­al­ly sup­port my de­ci­sion as well be­cause I’m do­ing what’s best for my­self and for my fam­i­ly,” he added.

Pooran, who made his de­but for the West In­dies in 2016, said he had giv­en his all dur­ing his eight-year ca­reer.

“If I played five games for West In­dies or five years and I [wasn’t] com­mit­ted, I would have said, ‘Okay fine, it’s cool.’ But I was com­mit­ted. I’ve tried to give my all for West In­dies.

“I was West In­dies cap­tain as well, [but] I felt like that didn’t work out for me, and for my game, and for the team­mates and stuff. I gave that up af­ter six months [be­cause] I’m not search­ing for pow­er; all I was search­ing [for] is how do I be­come a bet­ter ver­sion of my­self — and that doesn’t mean I need to have pow­er. And I just felt like I just want to con­tin­ue to do what’s best for my­self and for my fam­i­ly,” Pooran said.

The Trinida­di­an main­tained that he was not fazed by crit­ics who ac­cused him of ne­glect­ing the West In­dies to play fran­chise crick­et.

Pooran said his main goal was to be suc­cess­ful and sup­port his fam­i­ly.

“I’m still get­ting the op­por­tu­ni­ty to play crick­et all over the world and do what I love, and I’m still get­ting that chance to be the best ver­sion of my­self. I still feel I haven’t reached that stage where I’m the best ver­sion of my­self yet, so I’m still go­ing through that jour­ney of be­com­ing bet­ter as a crick­eter and as a hu­man be­ing as well.

“I feel like I can reach that stage by, ob­vi­ous­ly, trav­el­ling a bit more, so­cial­is­ing with dif­fer­ent peo­ple — and that’s just my jour­ney,” Pooran said.

“What peo­ple want is that they want [play­ers] to re­tire at 35, 36 — [af­ter] they’ve rep­re­sent­ed their coun­try and com­mit­ted 100 per cent — then go and play leagues and make mon­ey. But when you reach that age, now your val­ue goes down, right?”

“I’m sure peo­ple are crit­i­cis­ing me now, [say­ing]: ‘He’s prob­a­bly go­ing to play for mon­ey,’ but I’m ac­tu­al­ly in my prime ca­reer [pe­ri­od]. I have a lot to of­fer; I’m go­ing to score runs, I’m go­ing to win games, I’m go­ing to win ti­tles,” he added.

CMC