Windies spinner Sunil Narine likely to chose IPL over maiden Test cap

West Indies spinner Sunil Narine, who is not contracted with the country’s cricket board yet, is expected to chose playing for his IPL team.

London: West Indies spinner Sunil Narine, who is not contracted with the country’s cricket board yet, is expected to chose playing for his Indian Premier League team Kolkata Knight Riders over making his Test debut for the country against Australia.

Narine, who has played only nine international matches, and is yet to play a Test match, has an IPL contract in worth 700,000 dollars. With the Test series and the IPL starting on the same weekend, Narine will be required to opt between the money or his first Test cap. Windies coach Ottis Gibson isn’t sure whether Narine will be available to take on Australia, and doesn’t sound too optimistic about it. “I`m not sure what the board can do, because he`s not contracted to the board. He`s got a situation that is going to set him up very nicely, and as much as we would like to have him playing, six months ago Narine was not in our thoughts,” Fox Sports quoted Gibson, as saying. “We need to be a little bit careful in how we deal with that situation and that`s what we`re doing at the moment. There`s conversations going on behind the scenes,” he added. Players contracted with West Indies are required to be available for every international fixture, but the best contracts offered to them are reportedly worth around 80,000 dollars. The poor contracts have seen leading players like Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo turn down offers in the past in favour of money-spinning Twenty20 deals around the world. Narine’s quandary has invigorated calls for the IPL to be given a clear window in the cricket calendar to prevent players from having to make difficult decisions. ANI