The Yorkshire Vikings have today signed the prodigiously talented wicket-keeper batsman Nicholas Pooran for this summer’s Vitality Blast competition.
Trinidad-born Pooran will play five games as an overseas signing for the Vikings, having surpassed the pre-requisite number of international appearances (15 over the preceding two years) during the West Indies’ ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup campaign.
The 23-year-old only made his ODI debut in Bridgetown against England in February this year, but has quickly established himself as one of the most explosive batsmen in limited-overs cricket. Pooran, who has played six ODIs since then, averaging 32.60 with a strike rate of 93.67, will return to the West Indies setup in time for their home T20I series against India, which begins on August 3 in Florida.
The destructive left-hander, who has also played 11 T20Is and is considered by many as a rising star, top scored in the fledgling T10 competition in the UAE before Christmas, scoring 324 runs in nine matches for Champions Northern Warriors, including 33 sixes.
Four years on from an horrific car accident which could have ended his career, he continues to rack up impressive numbers in T20 competitions around the world.
“I’m very excited to be joining Yorkshire,” he told yorkshireccc.com. “It will be a new and exciting experience for me. I just want to come over to this country and continue the good work I’ve been doing and learn from the whole experience.
“I’m determined to do my best for Yorkshire and perform as well as I know I can and contribute to some victories.
“It is hard work playing for different teams and still trying to be as professional as you can be. You’ve just got to adapt and learn about different people’s cultures and just try to be the best I can be for the team.
“I’m a really aggressive player, I strive to be exciting and I like to entertain the fans.”
The Club’s Director of Cricket, Martyn Moxon, added: “He’s an excellent young talent and has done particularly well in T20 cricket and, although he is only available for a short period, we hope it will give us early impetus in the competition.
“It also gives us flexibility to see how Jonny Tattersall is travelling, having played every game this season. Jonny has now got three back-to-back Championship fixtures and only a couple of days between the end of the Somerset match and the start of the T20s. It gives us the option to see how he is, because he has been incredibly effective as a batter in one-day cricket and gives us flexibility come July 19.
“We’re mindful of the workload of Tatts (Jonny Tattersall) and we have been leaving things open to see how he was going. There are other areas we feel we need for the T20s, so Nicholas has been on the radar for some time. At some point we needed to make a decision on which path to take, so we decided to go for him, albeit for a short five-game spell.”