“Coming back in here after two years, everybody wants to get that special feeling we had when we won those two T20 World Cups,” Pooran told ESPNcricinfo from his home in Trinidad. “I feel like everybody wants that moment again. They want to be a part of that winning feeling. Doing it in front of our fans is even more special.”
Pooran, 28, said both him and several members of the current squad have moved on since. “We all have grown as players, as team-mates as well,” he said. “When we played in Australia where we didn’t qualify, everyone was hurt. I resigned [from] captaincy after that as well. Everyone was hurt. But we are no longer that group of guys.
“We all know what’s at stake here. We all know that we have an opportunity to obviously redeem ourselves, make our cricket fans in the Caribbean and our cricket fans all over the world proud of us [and] happy. This time around we are much better players as well. Most of our guys that play franchise cricket, they understand what is needed to be a professional as well.”
Pooran was impressed with how West Indies, despite the absence of the senior players, were “fighting” to perform and win.
“If you just look at the series we played against South Africa, a few guys were missing, but we were able to win that series 3-nil,” Pooran said. “You saw the performances, you saw that guys are fighting and that’s really important. We may win, we may not win, but what’s more important for me, as a senior player as well, is that we need to give it 100% on and off the field.
“It’s not about us, it’s about our team, 100%. It’s important for me to continue to share that message: that it’s not about me or ourselves. It’s not about us at all. It’s all about what we can do for this team to be successful in the end.”
‘West Indies have numerous match-winners’
West Indies, however, are not just about Russell. Pooran stressed that West Indies had a number of other match-winners.
“We have Rovy [Powell]we have Hetmyer, we have Rutherford, we have Sheppy [Shepherd],” Pooran said. “These guys have been doing brilliantly for themselves and for their franchises and for West Indies in the last 12 months. And I even think that takes a lot of pressure off Russell as well. It definitely takes a lot of pressure off me.”
“I remember that last game in Perth. We were struggling, we were probably 70 for 4 [79 for 5],” Pooran recalled, “and we scored 215 [220 for 6]. Russell and Rutherford scored 70 apiece [71 and 67 respectively]. They just tore Australia’s bowling apart. Just to have these guys … makes you not worry that much.
“In saying that, every single individual still has to do their jobs. But the beauty about our team is that we have players that, on their day, they can win a game for you in T20 cricket. That’s what you want. We have numerous match-winners on our team.”
ESPNcricinfo’s full interview with Nicholas Pooran will be published during T20 World Cup
Nagraj Gollapudi is news editor at ESPNcricinfo
