Retirement was in thoughts for a long time: Sammy

DARREN Sammy, the West Indies all-rounder who announced his retirement from Test cricket recently, has said his decision wasn’t a fallout of his being replaced as captain by wicketkeeper-batsman Denesh Ramdin.

Sammy, whose decision to call time on his Test career came hours after he was axed as captain, said he had been thinking about it for a long time. “After the New Zealand series [which West Indies lost 2-0] I sat down with the team management and the selectors and then told myself that we cannot continue like this. Probably my career is on the line. I was very serious about it,” Sammy told ESPNcricinfo.

“It was a difficult decision. If you have been playing cricket as a kid, all you have been dreaming of is to represent your team in Test cricket and I have been fortunate enough to do it. But I thought it was the right time for me to move on. I feel it’s time the West Indies Test team continues to move in a new direction, under a new leader.”

Extending his support to Ramdin, who led Trinidad and Tobago into the semi-finals of the regional four-day championship, Sammy had a word of advice for him as well. “Denesh has been captaining regional teams with distinction but it (leading West Indies) is a difficult job,” he said. “Leading guys who come from different cultural backgrounds and getting the best out of them. I wish him all the best as he tries to the lead West Indies Test cricket forward into a new era.”

Despite marking his Test debut with a seven-wicket haul in the second innings at Old Trafford, or having been heckled as perhaps the slowest-ever West Indies new-ball bowler, Sammy, the first cricketer from St. Lucia to play Test cricket, will be most remembered for having led the West Indies when a player revolt marred Caribbean cricket in 2010.