ST JOHN’S, An­tigua—In an ef­fort to as­sem­ble their best pos­si­ble team for next month’s ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) have reached out to Nicholas Pooran to find out whether he is in­ter­est­ed in mak­ing a come­back.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to Di­rec­tor of Crick­et Miles Bas­combe, it does not ap­pear as though the 29-year-old T20 star is con­tem­plat­ing com­ing out of re­tire­ment to take part in the glob­al show­piece.

Pooran shocked the world when he an­nounced his re­tire­ment from in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et last June and has since been ply­ing his trade in the var­i­ous T20 fran­chis­es across the globe.

With CWI set to name their World Cup squad fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of their up­com­ing three-match T20I se­ries against Afghanistan lat­er this month, Bas­combe re­vealed that moves had been made to con­tact Pooran.

He said those ef­forts had been un­suc­cess­ful to date.

“What I can say is that we have made every ef­fort to en­sure that we can have the best play­ers rep­re­sent the West In­dies…

“I could def­i­nite­ly say that we have probed. Pooran was quite aware that the World Cup was up­com­ing, and his de­ci­sion to re­tire would have been with that knowl­edge,” Bas­combe said while speak­ing on WESN TV on Sat­ur­day.

“So, we probed, and we saw that he men­tioned not too long ago that he was quite hap­py to stick to his de­ci­sion, so I could say that we probed.”

When asked if CWI had en­quired whether West In­dies leg­ends Dwayne Bra­vo, Kieron Pol­lard or An­dre Rus­sell were in­ter­est­ed in be­ing part of the team’s man­age­ment unit for the World Cup, Bas­combe said they had.

He re­vealed that a packed sched­ule was one of the rea­sons they had been giv­en for not be­ing able to make such a com­mit­ment.

“We have put out feel­ers. We’ve asked ques­tions about avail­abil­i­ty, etcetera, but as you can un­der­stand, the World Cup pret­ty much flows in­to the IPL [In­di­an Pre­mier League], so any­one who would come on board as part of our team man­age­ment would pret­ty much have to sac­ri­fice a lot of time away.

“We’ve probed, and some of the feed­back we’ve got­ten is that it would mean that they would have to spend an ex­tend­ed time away…and if they go to the World Cup, it would mean that they would have to spend quite a lot of time away from home be­cause they will be at the World Cup and then go­ing to the IPL,” Bas­combe ex­plained.

Pooran not fazed by crit­ics

Speak­ing on the Beard Be­fore Wick­et pod­cast, Pooran said, “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 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.

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.

“This has noth­ing to do with West In­dies crick­et, how it is, what it is, or 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.”

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 the 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 the 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. My main goal is to be suc­cess­ful and sup­port my fam­i­ly,” Pooran ex­plained. (CMC)