Where in the world are Narine and Russell and why won't they be at the T20 World Cup?
Tensions have been building between West Indies players and the Cricket West Indies (CWI) board for years over contractual disputes, pay and availability.
Key to these issues is the proliferation of franchise Twenty20 (T20) tournaments (as well as The Hundred) providing opportunities for cricketers to opt out of national team service in search of bigger paydays around the world.
West Indies (Windies) are particularly vulnerable to this problem compared to the big three cricket nations of India, England and Australia because they are simply not able to offer central contracts of the size of those other nations in order to guard against losing players to franchise cricket.
In short, CWI can’t compete financially with the money flooding into franchise leagues.
This has become a much more prominent issue of late, with South Africa and the UAE both recently launching moneyed franchise T20 leagues to rival the other versions already on the market.
The IPL (India), the BBL (Australia), the PSL (Pakistan), the BPL (Bangladesh), the Windies' own CPL, and now the ILT20 (UAE) and SA20 (South Africa) as well, along with The Hundred (England), are now all offering sums of money to turn the heads of white-ball cricketers away from potential national team duties in what is a fast-evolving commercial cricketing landscape.
Most national bodies have allowed some flexibility with respect to players participating in the IPL and The Hundred and certainly, in regards to the T20 leagues that they themselves oversee. However, in an increasingly crowded cricketing calendar, clashes between international tours and the growing number of T20 leagues are occurring more regularly.
All this instigates a dilemma for the players: get more money or play for the national team?
West Indies have managed this tension previously by allowing the likes of Narine and Russell to miss out on various engagements in the past. Indeed, Russell hasn’t actually played for the West Indies since the last T20 World Cup in October and November 2021.
Narine, meanwhile, hasn’t played a T20 international since 2019 and was, in fact, overlooked for the last World Cup, despite being available, after failing to meet fitness standards in spite of his good form in the preceding IPL season.
When the squad was announced for the upcoming World Cup two weeks ago without their names in it, it brought sighs of disappointment from fans of Windies, and cricket in general, but it also raised eyebrows.
Why were they both left out this time?
While fitness issues and availability clashes are completely understandable reasons to overlook both players or anyone, those were not the quoted reasons for their oversight this time round.
In fact, the official word from the lead selector, Desmond Haynes, and the coach, Phil Simmons, has been decidedly more muddled over the last couple of months in regards to both players' availability, perhaps pointing to other more complex reasons for their omissions.
Back in August, Haynes said in regards to Russell opting out of the three-T20I series against New Zealand, "From what I have gathered, I think he is unavailable because he hasn't made himself available."
A slightly cryptic remark, it must be said.
He added, "I will love everyone to play for West Indies. I would love to make sure that all the guys make themselves available to play. …But you must realise that the guys have options now, and if guys are choosing other franchises in front of West Indies, then we have to pick from who is available to us."
Clearly, this indicates that the predominant issue is availability and opting to play franchise cricket over internationals. However, as far as can be ascertained, both players are available for the upcoming World Cup. Or, at least, not explicitly unavailable.
More recently, Haynes returned to the issue of both players' involvement in the World Cup in an interview with Ian Bishop during the current CPL and took a decidedly different angle on the issue.
In regards to Russell, he said, "We had a meeting with Andre Russell earlier in the year… We're still not convinced yet, he's not performing as well as we would like to see him in the competition. I think in the situation with Andre Russell, we've just decided to move on, and look for someone who's in form, and doing well in the T20 format."
As for Narine, he said in a press conference later, "I did not get any notice from Narine regarding his availability to play. There were conversations that the captain was having with Narine, and from all reports, it seemed that he was not interested….Yes, again, the captain told me he's reached out to Narine, but I'm not too sure he wants to play."
What we can reasonably glean from these comments is that Russell has, in fact, been overlooked on recent form alone and Narine is not available.
The curious thing about the latter point is that Narine has not announced his unavailability previously and seemed to strongly suggest he would like to play when he told ESPN Cricinfo recently, "There's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff going on, which I don't really want to get into, but I mean, everybody would love to represent their country. It's a hard thing watching them knowing that you want to be part of it and you're not part of it.
"Things happen for a reason and hopefully in the future I'll be wearing maroon again, but until then, I'd still love to play for Windies. We shall see when that opportunity comes, but there will never be a no for West Indies."
As for Russell’s form, while he has not been at his sparkling best in the ongoing CPL, it is hard to completely believe the sincerity of Haynes' statements considering he continues to be one of the world’s most sought-after T20 allrounders.
His IPL performances for the Kolkata Knight Riders earlier this year were impressive in a struggling team and he did okay at The Hundred. There is a fair bit of competition for the all-rounder slots in the Windies squad but it is hard to imagine that there is no place for Big Dre Russ purely based on his very recent form.
Looking deeper into the comments made by both Simmons and Haynes previously, it seems that the issue is perhaps a lot more nuanced than what they would like to let on.
Prior to the New Zealand series in August, Simmons' remarked in regards to the players' unavailability, "It hurts. There's no other way to put it. But what can you do? I don't think that I should be begging people to play for their countries. I think if you want to represent West Indies, you will make yourself available."
"Life has changed, in that people have the opportunities to go different places and if they choose that over West Indies, that's just how it is."
Perhaps it is this pain that is motivating Russell and Narine's omissions more than anything else.
Haynes, on the other hand, made further eye-catching comments when he said, "If there is a competition that is run by the West Indies (and) somebody is playing well, I think his name should really come up for selection.
"That performance is very important to us."
These comments go to show that there might be a concerted effort amongst the selectors to focus more on players performing well in the T20 competitions overseen by CWI, namely, the CPL.
However, while some players have clearly been picked on their CPL form (Johnson Charles (33) and Raymon Reifer (31) for example), the selectors made the unusual choice of picking spin-bowling allrounder Yannic Cariah (30) in the squad despite not having a CPL contract at all, further muddying the issue of what the key criteria for selection really were.
As Haynes referenced competitions run by CWI specifically, it does make you wonder why that matters so much when you’re trying to pick your best squad for a World Cup. Why would that competition be more meaningful than other, arguably more competitive, leagues around the world?
Here, it seems complex commercial allegiances might be colliding with purely cricketing concerns.
Or, perhaps this is all just a matter of the Windies' power-brokers growing a little too tired of players like Narine and Russell treating the national team as a side hustle, a second consideration in their careers.
It would certainly be fair to say that both of them have moved on from the Windies in a sense, choosing to prioritise personal opportunities. And now, perhaps fairly or perhaps not, the Windies have chosen to move on from them, too.
Which party is playing the role of the jilted lover in this affair? Well, maybe it's a bit of both.
From a neutral fan's perspective, I would love to see the best players from each nation playing at the Twenty20 World Cup in Australia this year.
But, alas, it seems the world of cricket is rapidly racing away from the simper, halcyon days of old when that was automatically the case.
