ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – In a sur­prise and shock­ing move that has left the crick­et­ing world in dis­be­lief, West In­dies star T20 bats­man Nicholas Pooran on Mon­day an­nounced his re­tire­ment from in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et at the ten­der age of 29.

Pooran, who re­cent­ly re­turned to Trinidad and To­ba­go fol­low­ing his stint in the In­di­an Pre­mier League where he was the 11th high­est run scor­er, dropped the bomb­shell news in an emo­tion­al farewell on his In­sta­gram page.

The hard-hit­ting left han­der, whose last match for the West In­dies was against Bangladesh in a T20I in De­cem­ber last year, de­scribed it as a dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion.

“Af­ter much thought and re­flec­tion, I’ve de­cid­ed to an­nounce my re­tire­ment from in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et.

“This game we love has giv­en and will con­tin­ue to give so much joy, pur­pose, un­for­get­table mem­o­ries, and a chance to rep­re­sent the peo­ple of the West In­dies,” Pooran wrote.

“Wear­ing that ma­roon, stand­ing for the an­them and giv­ing every­thing I had each time I stepped on the field… it’s hard to put in­to words what that tru­ly means to me. To have led the team as cap­tain is a priv­i­lege I will al­ways hold close to my heart.”

Pooran al­so used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to thank his fam­i­ly, friends, team­mates and fans for their sup­port through­out his nine years rep­re­sent­ing the West In­dies.

“To the fans – thank you for your un­wa­ver­ing love. You lift­ed me in the tough mo­ments and cel­e­brat­ed the good ones with un­matched pas­sion.

“To my fam­i­ly, friends and team­mates – thank you for walk­ing this jour­ney with me. Your be­lief and sup­port car­ried me through it all,” Pooran said.

“Though this in­ter­na­tion­al chap­ter of my ca­reer clos­es, my love for West In­dies crick­et will nev­er fade. I wish the team and the re­gion noth­ing but suc­cess and strength for the road ahead.”

In a press re­lease is­sued soon af­ter his an­nounce­ment, Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) thanked Pooran for his “out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to West In­dies crick­et”.

“Crick­et West In­dies ex­tends sin­cere grat­i­tude and ap­pre­ci­a­tion to Nicholas Pooran for his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to West In­dies crick­et.

“Nicholas of­fi­cial­ly in­formed the lead­er­ship of his de­ci­sion to re­tire from in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et, bring­ing to a close a sig­nif­i­cant chap­ter in his ca­reer,” the state­ment read.

“A world-class play­er and a game chang­er, Nicholas leaves the game as the most capped West In­di­an in T20 in­ter­na­tion­als with 106 match­es and the lead­ing T20I run scor­er with 2,275 runs. His per­for­mances on the field and in­flu­ence with­in the team have made a last­ing im­pact on West In­dies crick­et.

“We salute his achieve­ments and thank him for the mo­ments he has giv­en fans across the re­gion and be­yond. We wish him all the very best in the next phase of his jour­ney,” the re­lease fur­ther added.

The as­ton­ish­ing an­nounce­ment comes on the heels of a record break­ing 2024 for Pooran where he scored the most T20 runs in a cal­en­dar year.

His 2331 runs scored at an av­er­age of 40 eclipsed Mo­ham­mad Rizwan’s T20 record for a cal­en­dar year of 2,036, which had been set in 2021.

Pooran, who over­took Chris Gayle to be­come West In­dies’ lead­ing T20 scor­er, al­so hit the most six­es in a cal­en­dar year in T20 crick­et, break­ing Gayle’s pre­vi­ous record of 135 six­es set in 2015 by smash­ing 139 six­es.

In his 106 T20Is, Pooran scored 2275 runs at an av­er­age of 26.14 with 13 half cen­turies.

He al­so played 61 ODIs, scor­ing 1983 runs at an av­er­age of 39.66 with three cen­turies and 11 half cen­turies.

In all, Pooran played in 398 T20s, where he scored 9166 runs and struck three cen­turies and 56 half cen­turies.

Af­ter mak­ing his T20I de­but against Pak­istan in 2016, Pooran’s in­ter­na­tion­al break­through came in late 2018, when he hit his first half-cen­tu­ry for West In­dies off just 24 balls against In­dia in Chen­nai.

From there, he was para­chut­ed in­to the World Cup squad and giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty as West In­dies’ No. 4 de­spite lim­it­ed ex­pe­ri­ence in 50-over crick­et.

In that tour­na­ment he hit fifties against Eng­land and Afghanistan, plus a thrilling hun­dred against Sri Lan­ka, and fin­ished the tour­na­ment with an av­er­age of 52.47 and a strike rate of 100.

(CMC)