ST JOHN’S, Antigua – The Cricket West Indies (CWI) Selection Panel today announced the West Indies squad for the Test Series in Sri Lanka. The Selection Panel named one uncapped player in the 15-member squad – Jeremy Solozano, the left-handed opening batsman – following the two recent three-day Best v Best matches and training sessions at the Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua.
Roger Harper, Lead Selector said: “The Best v Best matches provided the opportunity for the players to spend some time in the middle honing their skills for this tour. The aim was to simulate as much as possible, the conditions that the team will likely face in Sri Lanka, so it was good to see the batsmen spending time at the crease while putting some scores together and the bowlers looking to build pressure and create wicket-taking opportunities,” Harper said.
“Jeremy played for the West Indies ‘A’ Team in 2019 (against India ‘A’) with success and in the Best v Best matches he displayed a sense of application, patience, and composure while looking very comfortable against both pace and spin which encouraged the panel to invest in him at this point.”
Former West Indies batsman Carlisle Best has been made a Barbados selector, reports coming out of Barbados said on Wednesday. The 62-year-old Best replaces Ronald Butcher, who has resigned his position from the Barbados selection panel.
According to cricket commentator and talk show host Andrew Mason, the members of the board of the Barbados Cricket Association voted unanimously in favour of Best’s addition to the selection panel.
Former Barbadian-born England fast bowler Gladstone Small has hailed West Indies star Chris Gayle as one of the greatest players of all time but insists the batsman should have known when to call it quits.
With over 14,000 runs, the most in the format, the highest individual score (175) and the most centuries (22) and most sixes few could argue that the batsman is one of the most dominant to play the sport.
In the past year, however, the player has looked like a shadow of himself and the 42-year-old’s selection to the West Indies World Cup squad fiercely divided opinion around the Caribbean. Nor has the player, batting between 1 and 3, justified his inclusion to date, scoring 29 runs at an average of 9.66. While the rest of the team has also struggled, Smalls believes the inclusion of an out-of-form Gayle may have put too much pressure on the squad both on and off the field.
“Chris Gayle has been a superstar, he has been a box office cricketer but sadly, no more, his time has gone,” Small told the Mason and Guest radio program.
ST JOHN’S, Antigua – Cricket West Indies (CWI) today confirmed that the West Indies Men’s team will play three T20 Internationals (T20I) and three One-Day Internationals (ODI) against Pakistan at the National Stadium in Karachi from December 13 to 22.
The ODI Series will be West Indies' fourth series of 12 in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Super League in which the top seven teams can secure automatic qualification for the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 in India. West Indies currently lie in eighthposition out of 13 teams and have the opportunity to move above Pakistan into seventh position. The current ICC Super League table standings can be found here: https://bit.ly/3BHzwt4
This will be the West Indies’ first tour of Pakistan since April 2018 when three T20Is were contested. The two-time former World Champions will be playing ODIs in Pakistan for the first time since December 2006.
COURTNEY Walsh, coach of the West Indies Women’s cricket team, is looking ahead to the One Day International (ODI) series against hosts Pakistan, which will take place in Karachi from November 8-14, in the lead-up to the 2021 World Cup Qualifiers in Zimbabwe.
The West Indies Women will then go to Zimbabwe for the qualifiers from November 21 to December 5. At the qualifiers, ten teams will be vying for three places at the 2022 Women’s World Cup in New Zealand.
In September, New Zealand men’s team pulled out of their tour of Pakistan while England opted out of their tour, both citing security concerns.
“I think it’s very important, especially from the Pakistan (Cricket) Board’s point of view,” said Walsh, during a Zoom media conference on Tuesday. “They would have appreciated this.”
