PORT OF SPAIN, T&T – Vet­er­an off-spin­ner Sunil Nar­ine has fi­nal­ly quit in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et, four years af­ter play­ing his last game for West In­dies.

The 35-year-old made the for­mal an­nounce­ment in a state­ment post­ed on his In­sta­gram ac­count on Sun­day, in­di­cat­ing he was al­so call­ing time on his do­mes­tic 50-over ca­reer fol­low­ing the on­go­ing Su­per50 Cup.

Nar­ine has tak­en 12 wick­ets at near­ly 11-½ runs apiece for Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Force who have so far played un­beat­en.

“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,” Nar­ine wrote.

“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 re­alise my dream of rep­re­sent­ing the West In­dies and to you, I ex­press my deep­est grat­i­tude.

“Es­pe­cial­ly my fam­i­ly and in par­tic­u­lar my fa­ther. He is ever present with me when I take to the field and I am in­debt­ed to his sup­port and love, which car­ried me through the times I ques­tioned whether the pur­suit of my dreams was re­al­ly worth it.”

He con­tin­ued: “I would like to ac­knowl­edge and thank Crick­et West In­dies, the coach­ing staff and pas­sion­ate West In­dies fans, and of course my team­mates who en­abled me to play at the high­est lev­el, in all for­mats, and with some mem­o­rable suc­cess­es.”

Nar­ine, who through­out his ca­reer was plagued with is­sues con­cern­ing his ac­tions, fea­tured in six Tests, 65 One-Day In­ter­na­tion­als, and 51 Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­als but with lim­it­ed suc­cess.

How­ev­er, he es­tab­lished him­self in the fran­chise for­mat, where he dom­i­nat­ed es­pe­cial­ly in the lu­cra­tive In­di­an Pre­mier League for Kolkata Knight Rid­ers.

Nar­ine said de­spite his re­tire­ment, he could con­tin­ue to pur­sue his fran­chise ca­reer.

“I love rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, the coun­try of my birth, and to add an­oth­er ti­tle by win­ning this Su­per50 Cup will be the per­fect send-off,” he said.

“Need­less to say, out­side of this it will con­tin­ue to be busi­ness as usu­al for me in the fran­chise world for the fore­see­able fu­ture.”

(CMC)