Kieron Pollard is a mean machine. The 1.96 m tall Trinidadian can swing for the hills and often, sends the ball deep into the stands. He’s a product of the new Twenty20 age, delighting audiences as vast as Bangladesh, West Indies, Australia and the United Arab Emirates with his slick hitting. But one thing he doesn’t like being called is a “mercenary”.
“Mercenaries is a bit of a harsh word because I think we are doing it honestly,” said Pollard to The Times of India on Tuesday. “Some things have been put to us, for instance, I have been branded a limited overs cricketer, so what can I do? Having said that, at the end of the day , I like to be a leader in my own right. You look around the world and you tell me how many more, as you guys will say, mercenaries, there are at this point in time.”
The big West Indian continued, “Even the greatest who has played has resorted to T20 cricket as well. So I will leave it at that. At the end of the day , if that’s what they call us, at least we are doing it very legally and we are not going to end up in prison playing the sport that we love and doing the job that we love.”
But moving on to matters that are more cricketing in nature, the Marylebone Cricket Club recently announced changes to the Laws of Cricket, putting restrictions on the thickness of bats. Though these changes come into effect from October this year, Pollard said he would not be affected by them as his new bat was already compliant with the new rules.
“Yes, it’s coming into effect in October, but [it] makes no sense waiting till October to actually change bats and get accustomed. I was close to within the limits so it’s not too far off,” said Pollard. “To me, it don’t make a difference. Again, it’s the man behind the bat.”
The 29-year-old did not want to talk about his infamous tiff with commentator Sanjay Manjrekar recently but he was happy to pick the Pandya brothers (Hardik and Krunal) when asked which two Mumbai Indian players he would take to the Barbados Tridents in the Caribbean Premier League.