West Indies player Marlon Samuels announces retirement from all forms of cricket

Not so much a numbers man, Marlon Samuels was a player for the West Indies who always rose to the occasion for the team. Samuels, who last donned the Windies jersey when he made a T20I appearance against Bangladesh in August 2018, has retired from all forms of cricket.

Samuels has informed Cricket West Indies chief executive Johnny Grave that we won’t be playing professional cricket anymore. Samuels hasn’t played any professional cricket since December 2018.

A familiar name in cricket, Marlon Samuels has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately since his comments on Ben Stokes and Shane Warne turned from bitter to ugly. While the comprehension of the reason behind Samuels’ recent social media behaviour was beyond most, it’s a fact that Marlon has never quite been the man who the common would relate to.

While his unique act of putting his padded legs on the table at the



press conference was seen with contempt by many, it was really a poetic justice for a character like Samuels to be reprimanded by the ICC for breaching Level 1 of the governing council’s Code of Conduct. But it was due to the on-field hurled by him at Ben Stokes that was really the reason behind the punishment.

However, the fact that Samuels’ unbeaten 66-ball 85 in the 2016 World Twenty20 final was the match-winning knock that brought glory to the Windies side in a difficult year. Even in the 2012 edition of the T20 World Cup, that West Indies won, Samuels was the one to score the match-winning knock of 78 (off 56 balls) against Sri Lanka in Colombo.

Both times Samuels helped West Indies win the titles while playing the finals against the hosts of the tournament. Although not so much of a career that was backed by numbers, it was Samuels who did more for the West Indies than is acknowledged or spoken about.