Nicholas Pooran: An old head on young shoulders

NICK FRIEND: Four years ago, a serious car crash left Pooran fearing for his leg, told he was unlikely to walk again. And now here he is, living the life he was told to forget about, a darling of franchise cricket, a future captain, a veteran of life

Nicholas Pooran is an unusual veteran.

A veteran of life, having experienced its lowest ebb, but also its highest. A veteran of 119 T20 matches. A veteran of a World Cup. A veteran of just 24 years. And, in that sense, a novice.

It is easy to mistake his maturity for that of an older statesman, the kind that has travelled the world and learnt of its quirks, of its cultures, of its challenges.

But then, four years on from an accident that might have ended it all, Pooran has become that man, a world-aware voice on the sharp fragility of human existence.

How far into the distance can you truly afford to gaze when you have witnessed first-hand what stands in the way?

“Sometimes in life, you set your plans and your plans don’t happen,” Pooran tells The Cricketer.

“I don’t want to set goals for the next ten years and then those goals don’t happen. Game by game. Day by day. Month by month. Year by year. That’s how I’m going about it.”

There is a perception of cricket’s franchise brigade, albeit an often-shallow misconstruction, of mercenaries, wanderers, athletes without ambition.

Pooran is none of these. He is everything else and more. With just three first-class appearances to his name, it might be that the hype appears premature. But there is a swagger to him that exudes both confidence and calm, a substance that solidifies the style.

And yet, the world might never have been given the opportunity to see it. It is a well-told story now of Pooran’s journey from the brink, but no less remarkable, no less logic-defying.

A serious car crash in 2015 left him fearing for his leg, told he was unlikely to walk again; a ruptured left patellar tendon, a fractured right ankle. And now here he is, living the life he was told to forget about.

A statement from the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board at the time declared: “We wish him a speedy recovery so he can be back to fitness.” In truth, even that was a distant pipedream, words that did little justice to the severity of the injuries.

Initially, he could not straighten his leg. “Six months in that wheelchair helped me,” he reflects now, with a nod to an undying trust in his religion.

“The accident is my motivation. What’s the reason that I’m in the team? I feel like I was here to play this game. I have to take full advantage of that.

“Everyone talks about talent and potential, but talent and potential only take you so far. This is when it gets tricky now. This is when the game is all about the mind now. It’s about being mature as a cricketer and understanding the game and not making the same mistakes over and over again.

“Even now when I sit here, I think about it again – I never thought I could have achieved so much so fast. Hard work proves that it is possible.

“Now that it has happened, I just want to continue what I’ve been doing for the last two years. The last few years of my life have been about developing. I’m on the right path.”

^{Pooran has been a crucial part of Guyana Amazon Warriors' setup}

Guyana Amazon Warriors, his Caribbean Premier League franchise, were sufficiently convinced to sign him as their marquee player at the beginning of the current campaign. For context, Jamaica Tallawahs picked up Chris Gayle, Trinbago Knight Riders took Kieron Pollard. Two iconic names of West Indian cricket, and then Pooran – the young pretender.

It was, in a sense, a move that encapsulated a franchise completely at one with itself. They have already broken one record, becoming the first team in the tournament’s history to win all 10 group-stage matches.

Only once before had any team in domestic T20 cricket worldwide pulled off such a feat. A young team with a clear strategy – reliant on its spinners with the ball, and then a middle-order engine-room of Pooran, Shimron Hetmyer and Shoaib Malik, the captain.

When Brandon King – an uncapped diamond in a field of international stars – reached a staggering semi-final century against Barbados Tridents, Johan Botha, the head coach, teared up on the boundary.

This is what franchise cricket is meant to be when done well; they are a team with an obvious bond, even in a tournament that lasts just five weeks from beginning to end, where other teams have seen overseas stars come and go with little time to construct a real spirit.

That Pooran is not the side’s official on-field driver matters little. He is determined, desperate to make the most of a second bite at his dream.

“If I can mature faster than other players and learn quickly, that will be the difference between myself and other players as well,” he says.

“As a professional, I know what it takes for my body to be ready for the next game and it’s up to me now to help assist the other players as well and to try and be a leader in my own right and make sure that I’m pushing other guys to do the right things.

“I feel like I can be a leader myself for the other players. By saying that, I need to be a leader on and off the field and my focus needs to show. I just need to be an example to the other players as well.

“Once I believe that I can be a leader, from a player’s view, doing the right things on and off the field and setting an example so that other players want to do better than me or be a world-class player, then that’s all good with me.

“At the end of the day, I feel like if I’m doing the right thing on and off the field, my other players should be doing the same thing. What really matters is not personal performances, but as a team you want team success.”

They are the words of a far older man, of a body that has seen far more cricket than Pooran has. It is hard not to be impressed; he speaks as a future captain, with a level of maturity that West Indian cricket must harness, protect, bottle up.

“I think he is really good,” Desmond Haynes told The Cricketer in a recent reflection on the current state of the game in the Caribbean. “I think he could be one of our future players.”

Haynes does not dish out acclaim easily; he is scathing of West Indies’ World Cup preparations and plans and suggests that at times during the World Cup, Pooran and Hetmyer had an occasional propensity to go missing in the field. Yet, his praise of the youngster’s batting speaks volumes. After all, it takes one to know one.

As an effortless, Trinidadian left-hander, comparisons to Brian Lara have become a natural by-product. Pooran watched him bat growing up, and even now settles down to look back over some of his idol’s greatest hits.

“It’s good to be compared to him – it means you’re doing something right,” Pooran laughs. “For me, though, I just want to be the best version of myself, however I’m going to do that I’m going to try my best.

“One minute, they say everyone likes you, the next minute they say you’re not doing well. And then there’s nobody to compare you with.”

^{Pooran has become a major name on the franchise circuit} 

It is a lot to take in for a relative greenhorn; he has hit more sixes in T20 cricket than scored runs in first-class cricket. He has faced just 438 deliveries in ODI cricket, even if 103 of those came in a coming-of-age hundred against Sri Lanka in a World Cup dead rubber.

It was a knock that offered concrete proof to a hype-train chugging along with an increasing vigour.

“The World Cup was important for me,” he reminisces. “People would say that I play T20 cricket and I have to learn how to bat long. But now I don’t think I have to prove anything to anyone.

“I knew I was doing the right things, so it was a matter of time for me to get a big score. I would like to play more innings like that – I know I’m capable of playing those kinds of innings. It’s just about doing the right things off the field so I can be consistent on the field.”

And in Pooran’s world, consistency takes on even greater significance. There is a short-termism to franchise cricket that separates it from all else; it is about the here and now rather than buzzwords of development and progression.

“They don’t really care about how they’re doing it or what age the bloke is that’s doing it,” Ravi Bopara told The Cricketer of the cut-throat environment.

“If you’re doing the business, they want you. ‘We want to win the league this year, whatever it takes. We are going to get the players to win it. We’ll think about next year when next year comes.’”

Since the split-second that almost curtailed his existence, Pooran has played in the Bangladesh Premier League, Indian Premier League, Caribbean Premier League, T20 Blast, Pakistan Super League and Global T20 Canada. His name is reportedly on the longlist ahead of The Hundred player draft.

It is some résumé, but a fragile one nonetheless. Only the very biggest names – Gayle and Pollard among them – are truly safe. Others are expendable when form deserts.

“When you are doing well, people want you on their team,” Pooran says. “You have a good couple of months. With T20 cricket and franchise cricket, you play every game like it’s your last game.

“As soon as you fail in T20 cricket, they’re looking for someone else. For me, that’s a motivation to just do better and better in each game and to take that opportunity and make the most of it.

“Franchise cricket is about who’s doing well at the moment. My motivation is just taking those opportunities and being hungry for success. The only way of having that success is by doing the right things on the field and being consistent.”

^{Pooran made his maiden ODI hundred against Sri Lanka during the World Cup}

And while he has learnt the hard way to live each day as it comes, Pooran still dreams of more than this. He loves T20 cricket and he believes it will stand him in good stead for all that comes next.

He is – as Jarrod Kimber wrote – a child of franchise cricket, one whose reputation in franchise cricket came through playing franchise cricket. A rare beast among an industry that is as much an old man’s game as a children’s playground.

He lays out his own theory, that a child of franchise cricket can grow into an adult of much more. “In a T20 game, there are times when you’ll have to play like it’s a Test match, there are other times when you’ll have to play like a 50-over batsman,” he suggests.

“Then, of course, there are moments when you play like a T20 batsman. Even now, you can play T10 cricket in T20 games. For me, the transformation is about doing the same things but just for a longer period of time.

“I haven’t played Test cricket yet, but I don’t think it’s too much of a big transition. Even if you’re doing well in T20 cricket, that means that you’re doing something right.

“I feel like you do a lot of the same things in T20 cricket in 50-over cricket and then in Test cricket as well. It might take you a little bit longer to be successful in the Test arena, but it will happen.

“I can’t look ten years ahead right now. What I’m looking forward to is just playing cricket. Whatever cricket that might be, I just want to be the best version of Nicholas Pooran and be better and better.

“If it’s franchise cricket, I want to be playing better franchise cricket. If it’s international cricket, I want to be doing better in international cricket. That’s how I see myself.”

Four years on from breaking point, this is Nicholas Pooran. A veteran of life, eager to learn, desperate to be the best.