NICHOLAS Pooran is the captain of the West Indies cricket team in limited-overs cricket. It is now popularly referred to as white-ball cricket. He took over the reins from the entertaining leadership of Kieron Pollard, the tall, enterprising, famous batsman who is easily one of the most attractive batsmen worldwide in the shorter format of the sport.
The large cricket boots of Pollard will not be easy to fill as he made a name for himself in limited-overs cricket during his time between 2008 and 2022. It hasn’t always been easy for the big man, having suffered from knee-joint problems requiring surgery, plus a number of muscular mishaps.
However, he always displayed the strength and courage necessary to recover and continue. In the past two years it has been getting the better of him, until, I imagine, he was not enjoying cricket at the international level anymore, thus, he decided to call it a day which he did last April.
More’s the pity.
His vice-captain Pooran then moved into the role.
Against a weakened Australia team (if anyone could ever say that about the Aussies), last year when Pollard was injured, the 26-year-old left-handed batsman had a taste of captaincy at the international level and whipped the visitors by a margin of four to one, in a five-match T20 series in St Lucia. He did a marvellous job and must have gained tremendous confidence from the outing.
At present, he’s the official captain. This is a far more responsible and trying situation and he ought to tread warily.
His first assignment was an ODI three-match series away from home against the Netherlands. This European country does not possess Test match status, hence, it is one of the weakest teams in international cricket. It’s worrisome to challenge an unknown foreign team in their own accustomed environment.
Regardless of their reported weaknesses, the danger is in losing to them, as no excuses are considered valid, plus, the fact that in sport there could be upsets.
Therefore, whilst it may seem to be fortunate to have an ‘easy’ series in one’s debut as an official captain, it could very well be a false dawn.
Nevertheless, Pooran led his team to a three-nil thrashing of the Dutch cricketers, therefore, there would be no embarrassment.
However, the skipper’s batting did not improve, having failed in all three innings against a weak international team. His personal scores were seven, ten and seven. For the year in ODIs, he has only totalled 158 in 12 innings, an average of 13.16. (present Bangladesh series excepted).
On reflection, 2022 hasn’t been going too well for the white-ball team. At the start of the year, WI suffered a shock 2-1 defeat to Ireland, then folded to a humbling whitewash from India in February a month later. At least, India is considered a powerhouse and quite rightly so, yet Ireland, though recently accessing Test match credentials, couldn’t be deemed to be in the same class as WI.
From Amsterdam, the Caribbean cricketers flew to Pakistan to engage their hosts in a three-match series. They were
