MYSTERY spinner Sunil Narine is the highest paid West Indies player at the 2020 Dream 11 Indian Premier League (IPL), collecting a whopping US$1.2M.

This, according to sports website SPORTEKZ who gave an idea of the salaries of the players taking part at this year’s tournament which opened on Saturday in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Narine will line-up for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) yet again and will lead their bowling attack at this year’s tournament.

The Arouca man just came off a successful run at the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) where he was on the winning TKR roster. He grabbed just six wickets in the tournament as he missed a couple matches including the final against the St Lucia Zouks.

The next in line as far as earning the big bucks in the IPL and hailing from this region is Narine’s fellow KKR player Andre Russell who will collect US$981 400. Russell, the Jamaican all-rounder did not have the best of season’s with the Jamaica Tallawahs at the CPL but will be looking to return to winning ways with his IPL franchise.

The champion, Dwayne Bravo, comes in next as he is being paid a total of US$897 000 by the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), last season’s runner-up. Bravo recently became the first player to nab 500 wickets in T20 cricket and his team made a winning start to the tournament yesterday, defeating the Mumbai Indians, although he did not play due to injury.

TKR winning captain Kieron Pollard will earn US$757 080 by playing for Mumbai Indians. Pollard, a favourite with the franchise, got 18 runs in their opening loss to CSK yesterday.

The next West Indies in the pay list is young Nicholas Pooran who will pocket US$588 840 playing for the King’s XI Punjab. The left-hander, who scored a century in one of his knocks at the recent CPL, will be looking to repay his franchise owners with big runs for placing such faith in him. He will have with him at the King’s XI Punjab the ‘Universe Boss’ in Chris Gayle.

The Jamaican who missed the CPL for personal reasons gets $280 400 from Punjab after he was not rehired by Royal Challengers Bangalore last season. His price could have a lot to do with his age as he is coming towards the evening of his career.

Guyanese Shurfane Rutherford surprisingly gets in at US$280 000 from Mumbai Indians. Rutherford will be hoping to have some significant performances as he had a horrid time at the CPL. Fellow Guyanese Keemo Paul gets US$70 000 from Delhi Capitals.The other West Indian in the IPL, Guyana’s Shimron Hetmyer was not quoted on the site, so his salary remains unknown.

Overall India captain Virat Kohli retained by the Royal Challengers is the highest paid cricketer in the IPL, netting US$2.5M. Kohli is currently the leading batsman in ODI and T20 in terms of most runs over the past year.

MS Dhoni is just under Kohli as he is getting US$2.2M. Dhoni retired from Test cricket in 2014. Rohit Sharma, retained in the Draft picks by Mumbai Indians as captain of their team, is the third highest earner at US$2.1M. (Extracted from Trinidad Guardian)