Pollard - A fine career that could've been exceptional!

4 March 2020 wasn’t just another day in the life of world cricket. 

It meant something terrific for West Indies cricket. But more specifically, for a certain Kieron Pollard, it signified something stratospheric. 

As West Indies took on Sri Lanka in the 1st T20I at Pallekele, Pollard recorded his 500th T20 appearance. No cricketer before him or since has featured in as many T20 appearances. The burly man made the occasion unforgettable by launching into thirty-four big runs taking only fifteen deliveries to compile them. The West Indies cruised to a victory.

That Pollard was just 33 when he scaled what is truly a monumental landmark goes to show how frequently he has come to feature in a format that has become a persistent adjective of his cricket.

How so?

You think of Brett Lee; you think of toe crushing yorkers. You think of Laura Wolvaardt; you imagine the glorious cover drive. You imagine Chris Gayle, and you picture the mighty sixes. You imagine Allan Donald and with it, some hostility for batters.

But when you think of Kieron Pollard, you think of both - big sixes and T20 cricket. 

You think of many muscled hits that soared over the Adelaide Cricket ground, ones that flew over the long-on boundary at the Wankhede, the flat hits to the fence at the Sher-e-Bangla and the luscious blows into the crowds at the Seddon Park.

Over the course of a fifteen-year long career, KP has genuinely become more than a name; he’s a popular passport, a globetrotting international document that is certified dangerous for bowlers and has become a true asset for many a wealthy franchise.

The fans, who come to watch in lakhs, love KP. His captains, whether Rohit Sharma or Darren Sammy, adore him. Teams - whether you speak of Mumbai Indians or Karachi Kings - relish his presence and his opponents fear him.

But in a sport whose DNA has come to mirror the classic marketing rule - what’s on display is what sells - perhaps we’ve reserved judgement on the true worth of Pollard’s career. 

Or maybe, we’ve only cared about what has been on display more frequently than what simply hasn’t gone unnoticed.

For someone who’s come to represent the West Indies in no fewer than 123 ODI’s, it’s a shame that we hail KP only for his T20I achievements.

We remember the 2020 Auckland T20I, where he fired 75 unbeaten runs to guide his team to 180, but very little is spared about the fact that of Pollard’s (only) three ODI centuries, two came against Australia.

We remember that KP smoked 99 sixes in T20I’s, which as his career ends, remains painfully shy of a century of sixes in cricket’s most exhilarating format. But little is spared to appreciate that he fared much better with the bat as ODI captain than he did purely as a batter.

There’s hardly any talk about 2019, the very year he was named Windies ODI captain (in addition to T20I’s), where he fared the best he has in a calendar year: 109 runs from just four innings, including an unbeaten outing and a strike rate of 131.

In fact, there’s just no talk whatsoever that in his debut series as white-ball captain, Pollard led West Indies to a series triumph against a dangerous-looking Afghanistan set-up.

That West Indies, led by Pollard, clean-swept an Afghanistan featuring Rashid, Mujeeb, Nabi and Zazai in the ODI’s and that too, away from familiar Caribbean comfort (in Lucknow) hardly finds mention.

When was the last time someone spoke about Pollard being among the significant reasons, coach Simmons being the other, for giving birth to the Lewis-Hope ODI opening pair?

But Pollard’s been a career where exclamation marks exist in all forms of cricket. 

You are confused as to how come Kieron Pollard failed to conjure even 3000 runs, a basic ‘much expected’ landmark for someone featuring in over 100 ODIs. There’s an element of surprise in that he exits the international arena with his batting average being barely 26 when he could’ve sparked it a bit northward.

There’s gladness in that he fired six consecutive sixes in that truly unforgettable T20 against Sri Lanka in the West Indies to remind us all about his powers in the white-ball game.

But most of all, there’s absolute shock - not awe - in that Pollard’s called time on his international career with the sport’s showpiece event no more than a quarter of a year away: the T20 World Cup.

Would he not have wanted to go out on a high? Was he not preparing for a new-looking T20I outfit featuring Rovman Powell, Brandon King, Nicholas Pooran, Odean Smith and Romario Shepherd instead of Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Andre Russell, and Ravi Rampaul?

Perhaps the purist, who unfailingly spotted his calibre in that brisk 24-ball-38 in the 2008 T20I versus New Zealand, may still lament the fact that Pollard never featured in Tests. Yet, this is when he himself called that the aim of his career. 

But somewhere there’s an abundance of joy that Pollard contributed to perhaps the most unsung T20I effort from a West Indian in a world cup: his 38 off 15 versus Aussies in the 2012 T20 WC’s semi-final. And there may be lots to savour about the fact that the Trinidadian featured in no fewer than a staggering 30 T20 outfits, keeping up tirelessly with the changing tide of cricket.

However, all said and done, could he have done more? Could the man who, by self-admission, grew up admiring Brian Lara have stayed put for West Indian duties when he so sportingly hopped flights worldwide to participate in T20 leagues that often - not always - had little or no relevance?

Could that energy have been utilized for national purposes, to inspire up and coming talents and lead by an example? Wish we, the harmless fans had an answer for all of that!