SOUTHAMP­TON, Eng­land – West In­dies head coach Daren Sam­my has ad­mit­ted that he is not to­tal­ly sur­prised by the re­cent de­ci­sion by T20 su­per­star Nicholas Pooran to re­tire from in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et at the age of 29.

In fact, Sam­my said he ex­pect­ed more play­ers to fol­low in Pooran’s foot­steps as they chase the lu­cra­tive con­tracts on of­fer from fran­chise crick­et.

Sam­my, who is cur­rent­ly on tour in Ire­land with the re­gion­al team, said he had a hunch that Pooran was go­ing to re­tire from in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et be­fore his an­nounce­ment.

“My in­stincts told me some­thing like that would hap­pen.

“Nicholas sent me a text mes­sage, and so did I have a con­ver­sa­tion with his agent as well. When we first spoke about the UK [Unit­ed King­dom] tour and the con­ver­sa­tion I had with him, I did ask him, ‘Are you un­avail­able for the UK tour on­ly, or in­def­i­nite?’ And from that re­sponse, I just knew I had to start prepar­ing for the worst case,” Sam­my said.

“Ide­al­ly, a tal­ent like that, I would love to have him in the team, but I don’t con­trol nor could I con­trol any­body’s ca­reers… I wished him well, he wished the team well.

“It is [about] try­ing to move on now from plan­ning a game­plan with­out Nicholas Pooran. With a World Cup com­ing ahead, I re­spect the fact that he told us ear­ly enough so we have more time to plan with­out him,” he added.

Sam­my al­so made the bold pre­dic­tion that oth­er West In­dies play­ers would re­tire ear­ly in their ca­reers.

“I’m pret­ty sure more will fol­low in that mood, in that di­rec­tion. That’s the way T20 crick­et is now, and es­pe­cial­ly com­ing from the West In­dies, with the chal­lenges that we face try­ing to keep our play­ers mo­ti­vat­ed to play for the crest, so I wouldn’t be sur­prised.

“You saw every­body talk about Hein­rich Klaasen, Quin­ton de Kock, these guys who’ve re­tired. It’s out of our con­trol,” Sam­my point­ed out.

CMC