Pollard Country

[Nazarena Lugg]

Theproblems in our country (and every country) are not ones we can necessarily fix with policy changes or better political leaders or societal upheaval. We have a systemic sin problem, and God only ever does the right thing. Judah and Jerusalem suffered because they constantly harmed the innocent with their business and legal practices. They suffered because their people left God. There are still many good people in this country who want to do what God wants! But if God is punishing us, we may want to think twice about attempting to block his justice.

Previously, HKM has been awarded the following:

International Acquisition M&A Awards

- Overall Employment Law Firm of the Year: USA

Global Mobility and Immigration Awards

- Employment Focused Litigator of the Year: USA

AV Top Rated Lawyers

- Top Rated Lawyers in Labor and Employment Award: USA

Lawyer Monthly Legal Awards

- Labor and Employment Law Firm of the Year: USA

Ms. Pollard is a member of our multi-state class action team. She dedicates her practice to securing relief for working people all over the country. She advocates as an attorney at HKM focusing on class action lawsuits. Ms. Pollard has handled complex litigation throughout the country with robust experience in state court, federal court, and international arbitration institutions. Her work has been recognized by the legal community earning her the distinction of Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch as well as opportunities to teach Continuing Legal Education classes to other attorneys and be published in The Texas Lawbook.

Prior to joining HKM, Ms. Pollard clerked for the Honorable Nancy J. Rosenstengel of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois and the Honorable Joshua M. Kindred of the United States District Court for the District of Alaska. Ms. Pollard also externed for the Honorable Donald L. Graham of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida as a law student.

Three of the four men to have played over 500 professional T20 matches hail from the same country, which can also lay claim to two of the format's three highest wicket-takers, its third-highest run-scorer, and three of the eight men who have won multiple T20 World Cup finals. It is a track record that would make India, Australia, or Pakistan proud - but remarkably, it belongs to a nation of just 1.5 million people.

Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and Sunil Narine are, unequivocally, T20 legends who have shaped the format's evolution. All three were born within 20 miles of one another in the north of Trinidad, between 1983 and 1988.

Bravo, Samuel Badree and Denesh Ramdin have all won two men's T20 World Cup finals with West Indies; Pollard, Narine, Ravi Rampaul and Lendl Simmons won one each. Four Trinidadian players were part of the West Indies team that won the women's T20 World Cup in 2016: Merissa Aguilleira, Britney Cooper, Stacy-Ann King and Anisa Mohammed.

Now a new generation has broken through: Nicholas Pooran is one of the most sought after players on the global T20 circuit, and he is joined in West Indies' 2024 T20 World Cup squad by the canny fingerspinner Akeal Hosein.

The first official T20 matches were played between English counties in 2003, but Ganga believes Trinidad and Tobago benefited from a "first-mover advantage" by embracing the format when it came to the Caribbean three years later.

It was introduced by Allen Stanford, the Texan pseudo-financier who launched a lucrative inter-island competition in Antigua before he was arrested in 2009 for massive fraud and then sentenced to 110 years in jail.

T&T had enjoyed success in domestic cricket, winning the List A competition in 2004-05 and breaking a two-decade drought in the first-class championship in 2006. But they were short of their stars for the inaugural Stanford tournament: Brian Lara was in London on business, four players were on a West Indies A tour to England, and Bravo was - incongruously - playing for Kent in the County Championship.

"There was an opportunity for us to groom a peripheral group of young players in a new version of the game," Ganga recalls. "It gave us the latitude to be adventurous and to try new things." Ganga had already been exposed to unofficial short-form leagues - Martin Crowe's Cricket Max in New Zealand, and Pro Cricket in the United States - and prided himself on being "tactically shrewd" as a leader.

They played T20 in a futuristic style, with the attacking opening batter William Perkins leading from the front and a young Pollard in their middle order. Rayad Emrit was primarily used as a specialist death bowler, and Badree opened the bowling with his fast, flat wristspin.

Trinidad's cricketing culture was ideally suited to the rise of T20. Unofficial short-form leagues were already popular. These were often played with plastic windballs, hard plastic balls of the kind seen in kids' cricket.

Norman Mungroo's windball tournament in Tacarigua, Pollard's hometown, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and has featured countless international players. "Everyone would flock to see it," Ganga says. "Balls would be struck out of the park and innovations were welcome."

After winning the title in 2008, the squad were presented with diamond-encrusted gold championship rings. Five days later most of them were back home for a four-day match against Jamaica, played at a near-deserted Queen's Park Oval. "If there were 100 people at the ground, I'd be surprised," Ganga says. "Whatever you were motivated by, T20 cricket had everything: the following, the prestige, and the money."

And the money kept coming in: when Stanford invited England to play his "Superstars", effectively a West Indies XI playing under a different name due to a commercial dispute, in a $20 million showdown in October 2008, T&T beat Middlesex - the Twenty20 Cup champions - to secure a $280,000 payday from a one-off match. Pollard, Emrit and the left-arm wristspinner Dave Mohammed were all picked by the Superstars, who thrashed England by ten wickets to win the jackpot, taking home $1m each. Stanford's fraud was exposed a few months later.

"We can say the regional and national pride was the No. 1 motivation - but [teams] got $500,000 as a participation fee," Badree recalls. "Even before you set foot on the field, there was this huge sum of money in front of you; and there was the opportunity of doing well and making it into an IPL team. Players wanted that big stage to showcase their talent."

T20 was lucrative business but T&T's players were conscious that it could be a bubble that was about to burst: they had seen the Indian Cricket League fold after two seasons, against the backdrop of the global financial crisis.

"There were a few players who invested back with Stanford and lost their money, and a few who invested in a company in Trinidad that fell apart a few years later," Badree recalls. "Stanford's tournament lasted for two years. You were thinking, 'How long is this IPL going to last?' As a cricketer, you only have a certain shelf life. Guys were looking to capitalise on their earning potential."

T&T won their first five matches at the Champions League, including a tight victory over IPL winners Deccan Chargers in the first round. West Indies' reputation had suffered during their shambolic hosting of the 2007 World Cup, prompting Ganga to reiterate after that win against Chargers - and throughout the tournament - that his side were representing the whole region. Their batting power and tactical nous caught several teams by surprise before their eventual defeat to New South Wales in the final.

It was a breakout tournament for several players, but Pollard in particular. When T&T played NSW in the group stage, he muscled 54 not out off 18 balls to seal an improbable victory. It proved to be the innings that changed his life. IPL franchises were watching closely: Chennai Super Kings, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians all bid $750,000 for him at the 2010 auction, with Mumbai winning his services via an undisclosed sealed bid.

Pollard became a magnet for criticism. "Kieron Pollard, in my opinion, is not a cricketer," Michael Holding said in 2010. The same year, Pollard turned down a West Indies A team tour in order to play for Somerset in the T20 Blast; he and Bravo both turned down central contracts from the West Indies board to maximise their earnings playing in T20 leagues.

But Pollard's decisions were informed by his background: he was raised by his mother in a single-parent household on a housing estate in an area with "a stigma for violence and drugs", he said in Cricket 2.0. He became a father at 22, when his two younger sisters were still at school; after his first IPL payday, he said his ambition was to ensure his family "won't have to go through what I went through when I was growing up".

He was also conscious of his responsibility to give back. In 2012, he launched the Kieron Pollard scholarship, which funded a summer playing club cricket in England for the inaugural winner: his future team-mate Akeal Hosein. "I came over [to England] for two or three months before the Under-19 World Cup. Polly sorted out everything," Hosein recalls. "It showed me what it takes to be a professional - how you have to live, and how to do things on your own."

Hosein came through the ranks of Queen's Park Cricket Club, an institution that has played a substantial role in the development of T&T's greats over the years. The club owns the iconic Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain and counts Pollard, Narine, both Bravos and Pooran among their graduates. "It is unique: no other territory can boast of a private institution that has that financial support and facilities that players have access to," says Badree, who is not affiliated to QPCC. "Everywhere else, it's public clubs that are barely keeping themselves afloat."

International players regularly return to represent QPCC in domestic tournaments and to use the club's training facilities. "Once you create that professional environment, everyone starts pushing each other," Hosein says. "Maybe that's one of the reasons why so many players came through one particular club. When you turn up at training, you know it's not going to be a walk in the park. It was always 'We are going to train like professionals, because that is what we are.' I think we're a step ahead of the guys at other clubs."

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