Kieron Pollard, a T20 World Cup winner with West Indies and captain as recently as 2022, now wearing an England training jersey instead.
Pollard himself would not agree. “Cricket is a business,” he explains. “You have a job to do and you just try to do it to the best of your ability.”
Such thinking underpinned Pollard’s extraordinary – and ongoing, though he has retired from the Indian Premier League and international cricket – T20 career.
Pollard has played more T20 games than anyone in history: 660, including 101 for West Indies. He has hit the second most sixes and scored the third most runs. He has won five IPL titles, the T20 World Cup and an absurd 18 titles all told.
Almost as importantly, Pollard was one of the first major cricketers to reject a national central contract. In 2010, he recognized that his talent could command more as a freelance T20 player. The T20 world is one that Pollard helped to shape.
So is the game being played. In this season’s Indian Premier League, teams are scoring faster than ever before. Batsmen continue to recalibrate what is considered possible, especially in the closing stages of an innings.
Here, Pollard stands as one of T20’s seminal figures. Fifteen years ago, aged 22, Pollard played an innings that changed both his life, and the format. With Trinidad & Tobago needing 51 from 24 balls against New South Wales in the Champions League in Hyderabad, Pollard smote 47 from his next 11 deliveries.
Trinidad waltzed to victory; Pollard soon won his first IPL contract, worth $750,000. He had created the template for the finisher, with the power that he generates from his 6ft 5in frame.
While Pollard bowls canny medium pace and was one of the pioneers of boundary-catching, his career was built upon his thunderous hitting. In T20, he faces an average of only 13 balls a match; what he does with them makes him one of T20’s greatest ever players.
Jos Buttler was among the first to be influenced by Pollard. In 2010, Pollard joined Somerset as overseas player; Buttler was 19 and playing his first season of the T20 Blast. During Pollard’s two seasons at Somerset, the pair forged spectacular alliances: in the 2010 semi-final, they added 75 in 6.1 overs; in the 2011 quarter-final, 66 in 4.2 overs.
While Pollard’s contracted involvement is exclusively for the T20 World Cup – IPL commitments depending, he could join the squad for the Pakistan series from May 22 – he hopes to work with England again.
“If it goes well, that will be a feather in the cap. Hopefully, they’ll see the need for someone of my experience to be with the England team.
“My job, as I’ve always done playing cricket, is to focus on what I need to do in the present. Whatever happens in the future, good or bad, you take it on the chin. You enjoy it and you continue moving on.”
Come June 28, Pollard hopes that his journey will take him to Kensington Oval for the T20 World Cup final: the second of his career, to go with the one he won with West Indies in 2012. He remains a “supporter” of West Indies, and passionate about the game in the region.
Yet, asked whether his ideal final would be England against West Indies, Pollard laughs. Then, the businessman in him speaks. “The dream final would be England vs anybody.”
While Pollard’s contracted involvement is exclusively for the T20 World Cup – IPL commitments depending, he could join the squad for the Pakistan series from May 22 – he hopes to work with England again. “If it goes well, that will be a feather in the cap. Hopefully, they’ll see the need for someone of my experience to be with the England team.”
“My job, as I’ve always done playing cricket, is to focus on what I need to do in the present. Whatever happens in the future, good or bad, you take it on the chin. You enjoy it and you continue moving on.”
Come June 28, Pollard hopes that his journey will take him to Kensington Oval for the T20 World Cup final: the second of his career, to go with the one he won with West Indies in 2012. He remains a “supporter” of West Indies, and passionate about the game in the region.
Yet, asked whether his ideal final would be England against West Indies, Pollard laughs. Then, the businessman in him speaks. “The dream final would be England vs anybody.”