Nass­er Khan

Ac­co­lades, awards and de­serv­ing pro­fes­sion­al con­tracts from around the world keep flow­ing the way of Ari­ma's gen­er­al­ly shy (he de­scribes him­self as silent) glob­al crick­et su­per­star Sunil Nar­ine.

And as he con­tin­ues to de­vel­op his tal­ent, he keeps on weav­ing his mys­te­ri­ous mag­i­cal web around the world's top bats­men. He is cur­rent­ly rat­ed as the num­ber one bowler in the T20 (20 overs) ver­sion of the game.

As this fea­ture on the right-hand­ed bowler, left-hand­ed bats­man goes to print, he is al­ready off to a rol­lick­ing start in the In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL), where he plies his trade for famed Bol­ly­wood star Shah Rukh Khan's team, the Kolkata Knight Rid­ers.

Nar­ine, along with fel­low Tri­ni play­ers Kevon Coop­er, his child­hood bud­dy, Kieron Pol­lard, Dwayne Bra­vo, Samuel Badree and Ravi Ram­paul, is cur­rent­ly do­ing his thing for var­i­ous fran­chis­es in the high-pro­file an­nu­al IPL T20 com­pe­ti­tion.

He has al­so been con­tract­ed by the Syd­ney Six­ers team for the Aus­tralian Big Bash League and for the Barisal Burn­ers in the Bangladesh Pre­mier League. Re­gion­al fans are al­so wait­ing with bat­ed breath to see him in the up­com­ing in­au­gur­al Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL).

The Sun­day Guardian re­cent­ly in­ter­viewed Sunil Nar­ine. Pre­fer­ring to stay out of the lime­light away from the crick­et field, how­ev­er, it took a bit of prod­ding to fi­nal­ly get the time with the much-in-de­mand bowler of mys­te­ri­ous doos­ras/car­om/knuck­le balls and off spin­ners.

Like his Trinida­di­an pre­de­ces­sor Son­ny Ra­mad­hin did a cou­ple of gen­er­a­tions ear­li­er, Nar­ine, 24, mes­mer­izes the best in the world. His trade­mark mo­hawk hair­style, how­ev­er, is neat­ly slicked when com­pared to the cap-wear­ing and but­ton-downed long-sleeved Ra­mad­hin of the 1950s and 60s. And what a tan­gled web he weaves as he stays ahead with his va­ri­ety, ac­cu­ra­cy and con­sis­ten­cy.

Nar­ine, who turns 25 next month, is one of the more re­cent glob­al crick­et­ing su­per­stars T&T has pro­vid­ed to the world, fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of such lu­mi­nar­ies as Sir Learie Con­stan­tine, Clif­ford Roach, Ra­mad­hin and Bri­an Lara.

He views his sol­id per­for­mances in the 2005 Un­der-19 World Cup in Sri Lan­ka for the West In­dies as his step­ping stone to big­ger things to come, as he was able to find a con­sis­tent spot in the se­nior team at his lo­cal club, Queen's Park. It was, how­ev­er, at the 2011 Cham­pi­ons League Twen­ty20 in In­dia, play­ing for T&T in a cru­cial match against the Chen­nai Su­per Kings, when he dis­missed star bats­men Mu­rali Vi­jay, Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni, the last two caught and bowled, that the crick­et­ing world re­al­ly be­gan to take no­tice of Nar­ine.

Named af­ter the In­di­an bat­ting leg­end Sunil Gavaskar, Nar­ine is no slouch with the bat ei­ther. A left-hand­ed bats­man, he re­cent­ly pulled off vic­to­ries from the jaws of de­feat in two match­es, one for Queen's Park and an­oth­er for the na­tion­al team.

Among his more re­cent ac­co­lades are the ICC's (In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Con­fer­ence) Emerg­ing Play­er of the Year for 2012; the T&T Crick­et Board's (TTCB) Crick­eter of the Year 2012 and Play­er of the Tour­na­ment 2012 IPL.

Q: Where were you born and where did you grow up?

A: Ari­ma, I grew up there and still live there.

Who are the peo­ple who in­flu­enced and in­spired you the most, in your ca­reer and in life in gen­er­al?

Oth­er than my par­ents in every­thing, and Bri­an Lara in crick­et, I would say that at a young age in the North East Zone, coach Taren­dath Sam­my, who al­lowed me to ex­press my­self in all as­pects of the game. There are many oth­ers who played a hand, too, at dif­fer­ent stages in me be­ing the de­ter­mined and ded­i­cat­ed crick­eter that I am to­day.

What schools/in­sti­tu­tions did you at­tend?

Ari­ma Boys' RC (pri­ma­ry) and El Do "Blue" (El Do­ra­do East Sec­ondary)

What ad­vice would you give to the young peo­ple of T&T?

En­joy your life and what you do and make sure that what­ev­er you choose to do, that you like it and give it your heart and soul.

What are some of the things peo­ple may not gen­er­al­ly know about you?

That my first love was wind­ball crick­et; that I do not drink al­co­hol or smoke, that I have been at Queen's Park Crick­et club since I was sev­en; and I have many dif­fer­ent shades of sun­glass­es.

What mot­to do you live by and what is your recipe for suc­cess?

My mot­to in life is "life is what youmake it." That is my recipe for suc­cess.

Crick­et has tak­en you to many coun­tries ... where else would you like to vis­it?

Hm­mm ... I hear that Las Ve­gas is nice, so prob­a­bly there for a hol­i­day and the ex­pe­ri­ence.

Who was your hero grow­ing up and why?

I would say Bri­an Lara, whose ded­i­ca­tion and hard work al­lowed him to achieve so much and to see how far he reached, in­spired me to want to play for the West In­dies.

What is your favourite pas­time/ in­ter­est/hob­by (non-crick­et)?

I play a bit of PlaySta­tion when I have the time.

What was it like grow­ing up in your fam­i­ly?

Lots of love and en­joy­ment, both my par­ents did their best to pro­vide every­thing for me and my sis­ter. My dad, well, every day af­ter school we will go to the sa­van­nah with a bat and ball and play a lot of crick­et. My mom even­tu­al­ly re­alised and ac­cept­ed my love for crick­et, more than the aca­d­e­mics, which made it eas­i­er for me to fo­cus on what I loved the most.

When and how did you get in­to play­ing crick­et?

My dad ("Shad," short for Sha­heed) loves the game so every day as a lit­tle boy we would play every chance we got, every day at the sa­van­nah near us and every Sat­ur­day morn­ing at the Queen's Park Oval coach­ing ses­sions.

When and where did you play your first game for T&T and for the West In­dies?

First game for T&T was at UWI against the Lee­ward Is­lands, four-day game, in Feb­ru­ary 2009; my first for the West In­dies was against In­dia in In­dia in an ODI game in De­cem­ber 2011. I made my Test de­but in June 2011 ver­sus Eng­land in Eng­land and my T20 de­but for the West In­dies against Aus­tralia in March 2012 in St Lu­cia.

Which crick­et ground is the best you've ever played on, out­side of the Queen's Park Oval, of course?

It would have to be Perth in Aus­tralia.

Of all your ac­co­lades, prizes and awards, which do you rate as ex­treme­ly spe­cial?

Be­ing named the MVP at the IPL tour­na­ment, on such a big stage, out­side of West In­dies crick­et, so ear­ly in my in­ter­na­tion­al ca­reer.

What goals and or am­bi­tions do you still have?

To play in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et for as long as pos­si­ble, main­tain my love for the game and don't get swell-head­ed.

Who and/or what are the love(s) of your life?

My fam­i­ly, of course crick­et and, ... am, ... my girl­friend.

How are you han­dling all the fame and for­tune that have come your way at such a rel­a­tive­ly young age?

It's tough but at the end of the day I'm do­ing some­thing that I love so that makes it eas­i­er. Trav­el­ling con­stant­ly is hard, but I am ad­just­ing, cop­ing and en­joy­ing it.

What is your crick­et sched­ule for the next few months?

Well, I am head­ing out to the IPL in In­dia, there is the pos­si­ble Pak­istan tour to the West In­dies, the ICC ODI Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy in Eng­land, the Cham­pi­ons League in In­dia....

De­scribe your­self in two words, one be­gin­ning with S, the oth­er with N, your ini­tials.

Silent and Nice.

And fi­nal­ly that mo­hawk hair­style: tell our read­ers about it.

Well, it start­ed about five or six years ago and I haven't changed it since. It has grown in nice­ly and is very easy to main­tain so I prob­a­bly won't change it any time soon.