West In­dies mys­tery spin­ner, Sunil Nar­ine, an­nounced his re­tire­ment from in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et via In­sta­gram last Sun­day (No­vem­ber 5), ahead of the fi­nal pre­lim­i­nary match for T&T Red Force in the CG Unit­ed Su­per50 Cup.

Nar­ine, who last played for West In­dies in Au­gust of 2019, end­ed his eight-year in­ter­na­tion­al ca­reer in a post stat­ing: “I ap­pre­ci­ate it has been over four years since I last played for West In­dies but to­day I am an­nounc­ing my re­tire­ment from In­ter­na­tion­al crick­et.”

The 35-year-old con­tin­ued with: “Pub­licly I am a man of few words, but pri­vate­ly there are a few peo­ple who have giv­en me un­wa­ver­ing sup­port through­out my ca­reer and helped me re­al­ize my dream of rep­re­sent­ing the West In­dies and to you, I ex­press my deep­est grat­i­tude.”

T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) pres­i­dent Az­im Bas­sarath ex­pressed his sad­ness with the de­par­ture.

“On be­half of the T&T Crick­et Board, I want to wish Sunil a very hap­py re­tire­ment. He was one of the best spin­ners in the world and is still very well re­spect­ed world­wide, play­ing for the dif­fer­ent fran­chis­es in T20 and T10 tour­na­ments,” Bas­sarath told Guardian Me­dia.

Bas­sarath be­lieves Nar­ine will be a great ad­di­tion to the West In­dies Crick­et acad­e­my, to give ad­vice and sup­port to the up­com­ing play­ers.

He said, “It is our in­ten­tion to use him in our crick­et acad­e­my pro­grammes and of course, he will be called to speak to the young teams that will be rep­re­sent­ing T&T at the age group lev­el.

"And I know for a fact that as long as he’s avail­able and is in Trinidad, he will come to im­part his knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence to these young play­ers.”

Dur­ing a train­ing ses­sion, head coach David Fur­longe was pleased with the de­ci­sion made by Nar­ine and is now look­ing for­ward to the work he will be putting in with the younger play­ers.

“Sunil has giv­en all. He’s giv­en his best for his coun­try, and for the re­gion. I’m glad for him. I’m hap­py he has now de­cid­ed. He has been work­ing with sev­er­al young play­ers. Sev­er­al of these young play­ers have been a sort of copy­ing him in terms of his de­liv­er­ies and so on.”

For­mer West In­dies crick­eter Rayad Em­rit was not stunned by Nar­ine's an­nounce­ment.

“I’m not sur­prised that he an­nounced his re­tire­ment from in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et be­cause he hasn't been play­ing in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et for a while now. I be­lieve now West In­dies has lost one of the best spin­ners the world has ever seen and al­so in in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et,” he said

Young bowler Jay­den Seales sees Nar­ine’s re­tire­ment as a big loss as well but has been tak­ing all the ad­vice giv­en.

“He’s been a great help to not on­ly my­self but al­so all the play­ers who have come up around him, the spin­ners. In CPL this year, he gave me a bit of ad­vice on bowl­ing and I’ve used it and am still work­ing on the skills that he helped me with. So ob­vi­ous­ly, los­ing him around the set­up will be a big thing for every­one,” said Seales.

Nar­ine has played in 122 in­ter­na­tion­al match­es. It in­cludes six Test match­es, 65 One Day In­ter­na­tion­als (ODIs), and 51 Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­als (T20Is). He is al­so known for lead­ing WI to their first T20 World Cup ti­tle in 2012 and at­tain­ing nine wick­ets in the com­pe­ti­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to T&T Red Force bowler Akeal Ho­sein, “He’s a ma­gi­cian. We all call him a king, not on­ly in this dress­ing room but in many oth­er dress­ing rooms as well. That name sticks with him. And he’s a king for a rea­son. He’s ex­cel­lent at what he does and he’s al­so a bril­liant team play­er as well.”

On Tues­day, Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) via a re­lease thanked Sunil Nar­ine for his ser­vice to West In­dies crick­et dur­ing his in­ter­na­tion­al ca­reer.

CWI Di­rec­tor of Crick­et, Miles Bas­combe said: “On be­half of CWI I would like to thank Sunil Nar­ine for his con­tri­bu­tion to West In­dies dur­ing his time on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage. He was the kind of bowler who ex­cit­ed fans and brought them to the game. He was the ‘X’ fac­tor in the West In­dies bowl­ing at­tack and pro­duced some amaz­ing spells. When at his best he ranked among the very best in the mod­ern era. We all re­mem­ber the mag­i­cal bowl­ing per­for­mance in Sri Lan­ka, when he helped the West In­dies to their first T20 World Cup ti­tle. As he con­tin­ues his play­ing ca­reer, we wish him more suc­cess.”