With the 2026 T20 World Cup right around the corner, Cricket West Indies (CWI) contacted Nicholas Pooran and inquired whether he is open to making a U-turn on his retirement or not. Notably, Pooran had announced his retirement from international cricket in June, 2025 and since then has been active in T20 leagues around the world. The left-hand batter was a crucial player for West Indies especially when it came to T20Is and his sudden retirement left a big void in the team.
However, it appears that Pooran is unlikely to reverse his retirement despite CWI's approach. Director of Cricket Miles Bascombe has confirmed that they had tried to bring the 30-year-old back to international cricket, but the latter looks to be happy with his decision.
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“What I can say is that we have made every effort to ensure that we can have the best players represent the West Indies. I could definitely say that we have probed. Pooran was quite aware that the World Cup was upcoming, and his decision to retire would have been with that knowledge,” Bascombe told WESN TV on Saturday.
“So, we probed and we saw that he mentioned not too long ago that he was quite happy to stick to his decision, so I could say that we probed,” he added.
CWI approached Bravo and Pollard too
Not just this, the CWI had also reached out to veteran cricketers like Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell, exploring whether they were interested to join the team management for the upcoming T20 World Cup.
“We have put out feelers. We’ve asked questions about availability, et cetera but, as you can understand, the World Cup pretty much flows into the IPL [Indian Premier League], so anyone who would come on board as part of our team management would pretty much have to sacrifice a lot of time away," Bascombe said.
“We’ve probed, and some of the feedback we’ve gotten is that it would mean that they would have to spend an extended time away…and if they go to the World Cup it would mean that they would have to spend quite a lot of time away from home because they will be at the World Cup and then going to the IPL,” he further added.
West Indies' upcoming assignments
Meanwhile, West Indies are yet to announce their squad for the T20 World Cup. They will be participating in multiple assignments before the tournament begins, including the three-match T20I series against Afghanistan that will commence from January 19. That will be followed by a tour of South Africa that will include four T20Is and will begin from Janaury 27.