Cricket West Indies (CWI) have approached Nicholas Pooran in an effort to gauge whether the 29-year-old is open to reversing his retirement for the upcoming T20 World Cup 2026. Pooran, who announced his retirement from international cricket in June last year, has continued to participate in T20 franchise leagues worldwide. Despite CWI’s outreach, it appears the former West Indies captain has no intention of returning to international cricket at this stage.
Director of Cricket Miles Bascombe confirmed that the board had explored the possibility of bringing Pooran back for the global tournament, which is set to take place next month.
“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 also reached out to Bravo, Pollard, Russell
Beyond player availability, CWI also explored whether West Indies legends Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard, or Andre Russell could join the team’s management unit for the World Cup. According to Bascombe, the packed international and franchise calendar played a major role in their decision.
“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.
“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 mentioned.
CWI is expected to announce its World Cup squad following the three-match T20I series against Afghanistan later this month. With Pooran opting to remain retired and senior legends unavailable for management roles, the board will rely on its current crop of players and staff to contest the tournament.