Fearing he’ll be called for suspect action, West Indies send Sunil Narine home

The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) declined to confirm on Friday that Narine had flown home. However, it is learnt that one of two left arm orthodox spinners, Nikita Miller and Suleiman Benn, will replace him in the squad.

WICB chairman of selectors Clive Lloyd said that even before the squad arrived in India, the team management had learnt from “reliable sources” that the umpires were “going to call Narine (for suspect action)” during the ODI series. India and the West Indies are scheduled to play five One-Dayers, followed by a T20 and three Tests.

Reacting to the Champions League ban on Narine, Lloyd had indicated that with the World Cup just four months away, the team management was wary of playing the 26-year-old Trinidadian in the ODIs.

“If you hear these sort of rumours, it’s obvious that something was said before. It can destroy a team. You want to know if this is being orchestrated, because if you lose your main bowler then it puts pressure on the team. If he was called in the ODIs, he would have had to take quite a few months off and therefore missed the World Cup,” Lloyd, one of the game’s legends and the last West Indian captain to win a bilateral series in India, said.

Since he emerged on the international scene in 2011, Narine has taken 73 wickets in 52 ODIs and 21 wickets in 6 Tests, and been the top spinner for the Windies. His action was first reported during KKR’s league match against the Dolphins, where his quicker delivery came under the scanner. He was reported a second time on Thursday by umpires Rod Tucker, S Ravi and Vineet Kulkarni for flex action in his elbow beyond the acceptable limit.

“He has been bowling over the years with the same sort of action and delivering the same faster ball. And all of a sudden, they say his action is suspect. Just like what happened with (Saeed) Ajmal, who like Sunil is one of the best bowlers around. I have been involved in the ICC for years and I think you cannot ban a guy just like that,” Lloyd said.

“If somebody is saying that you are fraudulent, what do they do? They are going to write you a letter, and say you’ve done so and so. They don’t just send you off to jail. I want to know how they decided to ban him rather than say something like, ‘Listen, you have a bit of a problem and you have to rectify it’,” he added.

Of late, the ICC has taken a tough line on suspect actions, with Ajmal suspended and Sachitra Senanayake, Shane Shillingford and Kane Williamson having been reported. Lloyd, however, insisted that Narine and Ajmal weren’t the only off-spinners with kinks in their action, and that if ICC were to stick with the crackdown, “a lot more bowlers would not be bowling in a month or so”.

“The point is, just like (Muttiah) Muralitharan, because your action is different doesn’t mean that you are throwing. I think it is wrong that one of our best bowlers is being penalised now when he’s been bowling well for years in India in matches being overseen by top ICC match referees and not been called,” he said.]

With Narine’s immediate future uncertain, Lloyd said the WICB and selection committee would back him fully. “I have seen a lot of people whose actions are very funny but they were still playing. I am unhappy with the way things have been done about West Indian players and I think it’s about time that we stand up for our youngsters,” he said.