Kieron Pollard uncertain about his ODI future with West Indies

It was back in October 2016 that Kieron Pollard had last offered his services for West Indies team in One-day internationals and since then, the big-hitting all-rounder has never got a call-up for the national squad. If T20 has categorized some players' name in its "superstar" bracket, then Pollard’s name certainly would come right up there and that led to the cricketing world using a phrase these days, “ This guy is a T20 specialist.’’ Pretty much like that, Cricket West Indies has also thought to justify Pollard’s caliber as a shortest format batsman extraordinaire and has been selecting him only for T20I matches. However, Pollard stated that he wants to be in the CWI’s 50-over plans.

“I am still very much part of the West Indies International Twenty20 squad. The 50-over cricket is still a bit up in air as to what they (CWI) are thinking. That is a question you need to ask them,” Pollard said, who is currently representing Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League.

After making his debut against South Africa way back in 2007, the all-rounder has only managed to play 101 ODIs so far and scored 2289 runs while picking 50 wickets, which doesn’t give ample justification to the immense talent that he possesses. However, he earned a reputation by playing in different leagues around the world and he became the first player to feature in 400 T20s. In 2018, IPL mega auction defending champions Mumbai Indians put forth their Right To Match card to get him for a whopping amount of 5.40 crores and Pollard expressed his happiness about the opportunities that he has got.

“I am actually happy in my life, whatever opportunity I get to play, I am happy. Now I am focussing on the IPL…and, after that, there are a couple of international series.”

Due to the unavailability of DRS and the controversial DLS rule, Scotland failed to get the better of the two-time World Cup champions in the World Cup qualifier, which led to West Indies qualify for the next year’s World Cup, slated to be hosted in England in June 2019. And Pollard, while congratulating the team for the success, has also maintained that it was sad to see the team’s fall from the grace.

“Congratulations to them for qualifying for the World Cup, Obviously, as a West Indian cricketer, it’s disappointing that we had to go through that sort of an avenue … but I think the guys went and did a fantastic job,” the 30-year-old concluded.