Nicholas Pooran has retired from international cricket at the age of 29. The former West Indies white-ball captain announced his retirement, finishing his career with 2,275 runs in 106 T20 Internationals and 1,983 runs in 61 One Day Internationals.
Pooran hadn’t played any ODIs since the West Indies were eliminated from the 2023 ODI World Cup Qualifiers, and he recently opted out of the West Indies’ T20I series against England. His retirement came as a surprise, especially since just last November—when he earned his 100th T20I cap—he hinted at playing 100 more T20 Internationals.
Pooran made his West Indies debut against Pakistan in the UAE in 2016 and received his first ODI cap three years later against England. He was appointed white-ball captain in 2022 but stepped down after a disappointing T20 World Cup campaign in Australia.
His last match for the West Indies was a home T20I series against Bangladesh in Kingstown in December 2024.
Despite stepping away, 2024 was arguably his best year, as he hit the most sixes in a calendar year (170) and scored 524 runs in the 2025 Indian Premier League at a strike rate of 196.25, including five half-centuries. Early in 2025, he was also expected to play a key role in the West Indies’ build-up to the 2026 T20 World Cup.
Nicholas Pooran Was Once Told He’d Never Play Cricket Again. Here’s How He Defied the Odds
In 2023, while Rishabh Pant was recovering from his near-fatal car accident, his now teammate at Lucknow Super Giants, Nicholas Pooran, often texted him with words of encouragement. Pooran could deeply empathize with Pant’s ordeal—he had lived through a similar nightmare.
A decade earlier, at the age of 19, Pooran had just dazzled in the U19 World Cup and was heading home to Couva from a training session at Balmain when tragedy struck. As he swerved to let another vehicle pass, his car crashed into a pile of sand. He managed to pull it back onto the road, only to be hit by another vehicle moments later.
He regained consciousness in a hospital bed. When he tried to move his legs, they wouldn’t respond. Heavy casts covered them. He once asked a doctor if he would be able to play cricket again. The doctor’s somber face said it all. “Will I ever run again?” Pooran asked. The response: “Maybe.”
His injuries were severe—he had broken his right ankle and torn the patellar tendon in his left knee. Beyond the physical pain, what haunted him most was the uncertainty of his future. He had just begun making waves in the cricketing world, and there were whispers that he was already on the national selectors’ radar.
He underwent two surgeries, and after spending two weeks in the hospital, he was discharged in a wheelchair. His friend and senior cricketer Kieron Pollard stood by his side during his recovery. As Pooran regained strength, the two would walk and later jog together.
Pollard later introduced him to Eddie Tolchard of Insignia Sports, one of the top sports agents globally—an introduction that would help shape Pooran’s future.
Through sheer determination and talent, Nicholas Pooran rebuilt his career and rose to become one of the most explosive six-hitters in T20 cricket. He has scored 9,166 runs in 398 T20 matches, including three centuries and 56 half-centuries, with a highest score of 102* and a strike rate of 150.33.
In the IPL alone, Pooran has accumulated 2,293 runs in 90 matches at an incredible strike rate of 168.97, with 14 fifties and a highest score of 87*. Remarkably, he has hit 639 sixes in T20s—167 of them in the IPL.
From being told he might never walk again to becoming one of the most feared T20 batsmen in the world, Nicholas Pooran’s journey is nothing short of extraordinary.