Kieron Pollard

Kieron Pollard — Kieron Adrian Pollard (born 12 May 1987) is an international cricketer who plays for the West Indies. An aggressive all-rounder, Pollard provides medium-fast pace bowling and big-hitting from the middle-order. After shining during the 2009 Champions League Twenty20, he was signed by both the Southern Redbacks and Somerset for their domestic Twenty20 campaigns. He was the joint highest paid player in the 2010 Indian Premier League, playing for Mumbai Indians.

After representing Trinidad and Tobago in the 2005 TCL Group West Indies Under-19 Challenge, he was selected as part of the West Indies Under-19 cricket team to tour Pakistan. Pollard top-scored for the West Indies in the first youth One Day International (ODI), scoring 53 runs off 49 balls. Pollard made another half-century in the second match, but didn’t manage to make double figures in either of last two games. He was named in the West Indies squad for the 2006 U/19 Cricket World Cup, held in Sri Lanka, where he only managed to make 19-runs in his four innings, though he did manage to take two wickets in a defeat to Australia.

During the 2006 English season he came to England to play for Haxey CC in Lincolnshire; he was meant to play the whole season but was called back to play for Trinidad and Tobago after just one month. Pollard made his senior debut for Trinidad and Tobago in the Stanford Twenty20 against the Cayman Islands in July 2006. He finished the tournament with a respectable return of six wickets, and starred in the semi-final against Nevis, scoring 83 runs off just 38 balls, an innings which included 7 sixes to book Trinidad and Tobago’s place in the final. He made his first-class debut six months later against Barbados, and marked the occasion with a century. As in the Twenty20, his innings contained a large number of boundaries, with 86 of his 126 runs coming from either fours or sixes. A score of 46 not out on his List A debut ensured that Pollard was in the selector’s minds for the upcoming World Cup, and he described it as “a dream come true” when he was selected in the provisional 30-man squad for the tournament. Pollard’s “dream run” continued with half-centuries in both four-day and 50-over matches against Guyana, followed by his second first-class century, coming against the Leeward Islands. Against Jamaica, Pollard showed his bowling ability, claiming four wickets in his seven overs to claim his fifth man of the match award in his 15th major cricket match. Trinidad and Tobago remained unbeaten in the 2006–07 KFC Cup, beating Windward Islands in the final to claim the trophy. Pollard finished as the competition’s leading run-scorer, making 261 runs from his seven innings at an average of over 40.