Mys­tery spin­ner Sunil Nar­ine is the high­est paid West In­dies play­er at the 2020 Dream 11 In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL), col­lect­ing a whop­ping US$1.2M.

This, ac­cord­ing to sports web­site SPORTEKZ who gave an idea of the salaries of the play­ers tak­ing part at this year’s tour­na­ment which opened on Sat­ur­day in Abu Dhabi in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates.

Nar­ine will line-up for the Kolkata Knight Rid­ers (KKR) yet again and will lead their bowl­ing at­tack at this year’s tour­na­ment. The Arou­ca man just came off a suc­cess­ful run at the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) where he was on the win­ning TKR ros­ter. He grabbed just six wick­ets in the tour­na­ment as he missed a cou­ple match­es in­clud­ing the fi­nal against the St Lu­cia Zouks.

The next in line as far as earn­ing the big bucks in the IPL and hail­ing from this re­gion is Nar­ine’s fel­low KKR play­er An­dre Rus­sell who will col­lect US$981,400. Rus­sell, the Ja­maican all-rounder did not have the best of sea­son’s with the Ja­maica Tallawahs at the CPL but will be look­ing to re­turn to win­ning ways with his IPL fran­chise.

The cham­pi­on, Dwayne Bra­vo, comes in next as he is be­ing paid a to­tal of US$897,000 by the Chen­nai Su­per Kings (CSK), last sea­son’s run­ner-up. Bra­vo re­cent­ly be­came the first play­er to nab 500 wick­ets in T20 crick­et and his team made a win­ning start to the tour­na­ment yes­ter­day de­feat­ing the Mum­bai In­di­ans, al­though he did not play due to in­jury.

TKR win­ning cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard will earn US$757,080 by play­ing for the Mum­bai In­di­ans. Pol­lard a favourite with the fran­chise got 18 runs in their open­ing loss to the Chen­nai Su­per Kings yes­ter­day.

The next West In­dies in the pay list is young Nico­las Pooran who will pock­et US$588,840 play­ing for the King’s XI Pun­jab. The left-han­der who scored a cen­tu­ry in one of his knocks at the re­cent CPL, will be look­ing to re­pay his fran­chise own­ers with big runs for plac­ing such faith in him. He will have with him at the King’s XI Pun­jab the "Uni­verse Boss" in Chris Gayle.

The Ja­maican who missed the CPL for per­son­al rea­sons gets $280,400 from Pun­jab af­ter he was not re­hired by the Roy­al Chal­lengers Ban­ga­lore last sea­son. His price could have a lot to do with his age as he is com­ing to­wards the evening of his ca­reer.

Guyanese Shur­fane Ruther­ford sur­pris­ing­ly gets in at US$280,000 from the Mum­bai In­di­ans. Ruther­ford will be hop­ing to have some sig­nif­i­cant per­for­mances as he had a hor­rid time at the CPL. Fel­low Guyanese Keemo Paul gets US$70,000 from the Del­hi Cap­i­tals.

The oth­er West In­di­an in the IPL, Guyana's Shim­ron Het­my­er was not quot­ed on the site, so his salary re­mains un­known.

Over­all In­dia’s cap­tain Vi­rat Kohli re­tained by the Roy­al Chal­lengers is the high­est paid crick­eters in the IPL, net­ting US$2.5 mil­lion. Kohli is cur­rent­ly the lead­ing bats­man in ODI and T20 in terms of most runs over the past year.

MS Dhoni is just un­der Kohli as he is get­ting US$2.2 mil­lion. Dhoni re­tired from Test crick­et in 2014. Ro­hit Shar­ma re­tain in the Draft picks by Mum­bai In­di­an as cap­tain of their team is the third high­est earn­er at US$2.1 mil­lion.

WEST IN­DI­AN PAY PACK­ETS AT THE 2020 IPL

Sunil Nar­ine – US$1.2M

An­dre Rus­sell – US$981,400

Dwayne Bra­vo – US$897,000

Kieron Pol­lard – US$757,080

Nico­las Pooran – US$588,840

Chris Gayle – US$280,400

Shur­fane Ruther­ford – US$280,000

Keemo Paul – US$70,000