Has Pooran returned to form? Can he continue the T20 touch in ODI’s up ahead?

The West Indies only needed two runs from as many overs in the just-concluded T20 against Bangladesh at Guyana. 

This wasn’t a dream scenario but a reality that things were, in fact, so easy. 

For a side that, in recent times, met ghastly fortunes losing one white-ball series after another in 2022, whether one recollects enormous failures against Ireland and then India and Pakistan, this was a reprieve. 

So the recent T20I series versus Bangladesh was different and, rest assured, pleasant. 

It was akin to a fairy tale ending amid the dreadful run of form Windies demonstrated, where barring the ODI series win against the Netherlands, the hosts didn’t have much to savour. 

Any doubts, whatsoever, of a last-minute scramble at the Providence stadium, were raised to the ground. 

The reason was simple. It wasn’t some rocket science. 

Nicholas Pooran was out there. He was already in his mid-sixties.

The scorecards kept flashing a personal best score of 70, something he’d achieved just six months ago against England in a massively impressive T20 win. 

But when he lifted Mahmadullah on the second delivery of the nineteenth over, the left-hander carved a glorious six, the fifth in his destructive knock and the eleventh that his West Indies blasted. 

And in so doing, Pooran not only reached a career-best 74 not out but also enjoyed a return to form. 

Lest it is forgotten, Pooran had just stroked a 34 in the previous game, and who knows, would’ve put on a whack or two in the opening T20 international had it not been lost to the uninvited rain intervention. 

But truth be told, there was more to Nicholas Pooran’s outing in this series if one cared to deep dive. 

108 runs from just two T20I’s cut a very different portrait for a batsman who, despite playing 12 ODI’s this year, managed no more than 158 runs. And that’s not to forget a rather horrible and unbelievable average of 13 in 50-over cricket this year. 

The Nicholas Pooran we just saw in the twenty-over contests was a giant in that regard. Unfortunately, though, the one we’ve struggled to come to terms with in ODI cricket, as seen this year, seemed some other man altogether. 

He seemed a lad somewhat listless, perhaps hassled even in an inexplicable route he repeatedly undertook to clear the fence in games in India and Pakistan. 

Here’s simple evidence. The most he ever lasted in an ODI in India were thirty-nine deliveries. 

That wasn’t all; there was no discarding that botched-up route of amassing runs despite clearly seeing that the approach had faltered. 

Here’s simple evidence you can find anywhere.  

With scores like 18, 9, and 34 against India and 21, 25, and 11, versus Pakistan, it was unreal to see Pooran self-capitulating inning after inning. 

The doubts whether his technique needed some rekindling or if it would all be fine with time grew when he found a way to get out to spin in each of the three ODI’s he played against the Netherlands. 

A rather bleak reality in the contests held in Europe was that the Trinidadian fell to the same spinner in each of the three games; young Dutch spinner Dutt enjoying a pleasing outcome against a fine West Indian batsman. 

Which is why come the fifty-over games against Bangladesh and, thereafter, India, Nicholas Pooran mustn’t go back to his ill-conceived ways of batting, a result of which are dubious numbers evident in his 2022 batting average- 13 and a strike rate of 66. 

There’s also a sense of occasion to that. 

Pooran’s no longer just an up-and-coming batsman even as he’s yet to touch fifty contests in either of the white ball formats he’s played. 

With no Pollard around to guide him and, moreover, with the added responsibility of captaining the side, Pooran must strive to step up the game for his West Indies. 

After all, glorious attempts to succeed lead us to where we must ultimately belong. 

But what would become if we didn’t attempt in the first place. 

So if Nicky P, as he’s famously called, is listening, kindly bring the momentum and the runs collected in the recent T20I’s into the forthcoming one-dayers. 

Lastly, don’t moonwalk to the strange ways of finding fielders and holding up in the deep, as seen in recent ODI outings when you can do so much better.  

Note: Important stat that suggests Pooran’s thriving in T20I’s, at least, as of now: 

826 of his 1300 plus T20I runs have come through fours and sixes ( 75 sixes and 94 fours).