West Indies spinner Narine withdraws from WC

Offspinner Sunil Narine withdrew from the West Indies squad for the Cricket World Cup on Tuesday because he said he was not fully confident in his revised bowling action (Aijaz Rahi/AP)

Offspinner Sunil Narine withdrew from the West Indies squad for the Cricket World Cup on Tuesday because he said he was not fully confident in his revised bowling action.

The West Indies Cricket Board said a replacement will be named shortly.

Narine’s action was reported as suspect in India in September, but he was suspended only from matches in India. He rehabilitated himself, and preliminary tests showed he was bowling legally when he was picked by West Indies this month.

"However," a board statement said, "he requires more time to be able to confidently bowl for a sustained period in international cricket with his new action."

Narine helped Trinidad and Tobago win the West Indies regional one-day title on Sunday with remarkable figures of 8-3-9-6.

"But going in to the World Cup is a little too much too soon and, after consulting the WICB, for both West Indies and my sake we have decided to delay my return to international cricket until I am 100 per cent confident in all that I do," Narine said in the statement.

His withdrawal was a blow to West Indies, as Narine was ranked No. 2 in the one-day international bowling ranking when he was suspended in September.

When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.