The West Indies will be seeking to bounce back from their three-match One-Day International (ODI) series loss to Sri Lanka when the sides turn their attention to the two-match T20I series in Pallekele on Wednesday. With eight months to go to the seventh staging of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, each passing series has the WINDIES squad progressing to the version that is expected to defend their title in Australia come October. The latest addition to the squad being the dangerous Andre Russell.
Russell, who Cricket West Indies’ (CWI) Lead Selector, Roger Harper, mentioned will add “potency” to the squad, returns to the West Indies T20 side for the first time since August 2018. While the continued absence of Evin Lewis sees a return to the shortest format for wicketkeeper-batsman Shai Hope; Russell is joined by fellow Jamaicans, Oshane Thomas, and Fabian Allen, as the other returnees to this format for the visitors. However, there was no place in the squad for power-hitter Sherfane Rutherford or left-arm spinner Khary Pierre—who was also dropped from the ODI squad.
The West Indies batsman wants more runs and more wins.
He made the frank disclosure on Sunday night after the team went down by just six runs in another nailbiter to Sri Lanka at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium in the central town Kandy. It was the second close finish to the three-match series, following the one-wicket heart-breaking defeat in the opening match at the Sinhalese Sports Club in the capital city, Colombo.
In the first match, Hope top-scored with 115. In the last, he was again the leading man with 72. In between, he made 51 in the second contest. That’s a total of 238 runs at the impressive average of 79.3 runs per innings. He kept wicket for all 150 overs Sri Lanka batted and also held eight catches behind the stumps. He batted most of every innings, so he was on the field more than any other player in the series. However, in his eyes, there is still a burning desire to do more.
“I feel like I haven’t scored enough runs! I’m just trying to do my job for the team. My job is to bat long and score runs and it’s unfortunate that we couldn’t get the wins in this series. They say there’s a learning curve for everything, so hopefully, we can learn from this as quickly as possible and move on from there,” Hope said.
The Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) will once again work with Cricket West Indies (CWI) to ensure that the best young players from across the region will be in CPL squads during the tournament, as well as ensuring that these talented youngsters will be given game time.
The list of 20 players has been provided by CWI and includes five of the players who did so well for West Indies during the recent ICC Under 19 World Cup in South Africa. Kimani Melius, Jayden Seales, Ashmead Nedd, Nyeem Young and Kirk McKenzie are in with a chance to once again show what they are capable of, this time at the CPL.
There are also seven players on the list who appeared at last year’s CPL in these developmental spots – Amir Jangoo (Trinbago Knight Riders), Leniko Boucher (Barbados Tridents), Jeavor Royal, Roland Cato (St Lucia Zouks), Dominic Drakes (St Kitts & Nevis Patriots), Shamar Springer (Jamaica Tallawahs) and Keagan Simmons (Guyana Amazon Warriors). The teams can choose to retain these players, or they can draft or sign another player from the list.
SYDNEY, Australia- Stafanie Taylor has been ruled out of the West Indies Women final Group B match of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup against South Africa on Tuesday March 3 at the Sydney Showground in Sydney.
Taylor suffered a right-side groin strain which forced her to retire hurt in the West Indies Women’s match against England at the Sydney Showground on Sunday night.
No replacement player has been requested and Taylor will stay with the West Indies team to travel home together to the Caribbean at the end of their ICC Women’s T20 World Cup campaign.
ST. JOHN’S, Antigua – Kemar Roach defied a maiden hundred from Keron Cottoy to lead the demolition of the Windward Islands Volcanoes batting and front-runners Barbados Pride extended their lead at the top of the table with a 127-run win in the 2019-20 West Indies Championship on Sunday.
The West Indies pacer drew on all of his experience to undermine the Volcanoes batting with 6-84 from 19 overs, but a defiant, undefeated 103 from Cottoy took a bit of shine off the result for the Pride on the final day of sixth-round matches in the Championship.
At the same time, Rahkeem Cornwall followed up a career-best spell with a valuable knock, as Leeward Islands Hurricanes played out a tense draw with Trinidad & Tobago Red Force.
