Former West Indies captain Kieron Pollard announced retirement from international cricket on his social media platform to bring curtains to an international career that saw him represent West Indies in 123 ODIs and 101 Tests. Interestingly, Pollard never played Test cricket for his country.
The 34-year-old Pollard, who made his ODI debut back in 2007, fittingly played his last series against India, a country which has become his second home due to his long association with Mumbai Indians.
“Hi all, after careful deliberation, I have decided to retire from international cricket. It was a dream of mine to play for West Indies since I was a 10-year-old boy and I am proud to represent the West Indies for over 15 years in T20 and ODI format of the game,” Pollard announced on his official instagram page.
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While he is a feared T20 cricketer, one of the finest that the world has seen, his numbers for the West Indies remain underwhelming with only 2706 runs at just above 26 and 55 wickets from 123 ODIs along with 1569 runs from 101 T20Is at an average of shade over 25. He also took 44 wickets.
While the highlight of his international career would be hitting six sixes of Akila Dananjaya in a T20I. He was a part of the 2012 ICC T20 World Cup winning West Indies squad. He never played Test cricket.
A towering Trinidadian, Pollard is one of the hardest hitters of the cricket ball and is also a useful medium-pace bowler. Pollard’s feats on the domestic circuit and his remarkable display in the 2009 Champions League T20 made him a nation-wide household name. Although he has a decent first-class record, he is seen by many as an ideal cricketer in the limited-over formats.
Pollard’s impressive domestic performances caught the eye of the national selectors, which then resulted in his ODI debut in 2007. A debut in a World Cup was followed by a recall for the ODI series against New Zealand in 2008. Pollard scores a high proportion of his runs in boundaries, smashing the ball to all corners of the ground. He has produced some stunning innings for Trinidad and it was during the 2009 Champions League T20 that he grabbed attention of billions around the world with a 18-ball 54 for Trinidad and Tobago. He then went on to sign for Mumbai in the Indian T20 League in 2010. He scored his maiden ODI century against India in 2011 in Chennai but unfortunately it ended up in a losing cause.
POLLARD BIDS FAREWELL TO INTERNATIONAL CRICKET.@windiescricket .
PS… thank you @insignia_sports for putting this trip down memory lane together to support my statement. https://t.co/1E87uGw1rH— Kieron Pollard (@KieronPollard55) April 20, 2022
His impact on T20 elevated his status in this format and in the inaugural season of the Caribbean Premier League, he was made captain of the Barbados side where the team did fairly well. Since then, he has produced moments of brilliance sporadically for West Indies but has been consistently doing well for Mumbai in the Indian T20 League. An injury forced him to miss the ICC WT20 in Bangladesh in 2014 but his credentials in the shortest format of the game were enough for him to be retained by the Mumbai franchise for the 2014 edition of the Indian T20 League. He continued to be a vital member of the Mumbai unit while his international career was mostly on and off.
Following a disappointing performance at the World Cup and thereafter a complete whitewash against India, Cricket West Indies (CWI) decided to sack Jason Holder and Carlos Brathwaite as skippers of ODI and T20I teams and named Kieron Pollard as captain in limited-overs cricket.
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