KINGSTON: Twenty20 cricket’s finest exponents Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and Sunil Narine are unlikely to feature in the West Indies squad for the upcoming ODI series against India as their names don’t figure in board’s 25-player list prepared to procure Indian visa.
According to newsday.co.tt: “Dwayne Bravo – despite leading Trinbago Knight Riders to another Caribbean Premier League title recently – looks unlikely to be selected for the T20 squad to India as well, after he was not one of the players contacted by CWI (Cricket West Indies) about getting an India visa in the event he was chosen.”
CWI CEO Johnny Grave said:”Through the cricket operations department, the selectors have gone to 25 players to get visas sorted for India.”
Although West Indies squad is yet to be announced but CWI has begun the process of sorting out the paperwork of potential picks for the series which begins on October 21. While the West Indies’ Super50 (National One Day Meet), which started on October 3, is considered to be a parameter of selection, the schedule of the India series became an impediment towards selecting Pollard and Narine, who are playing the tournament to mend fences with the board.
“The reason the (long list for the) ODI team was picked before Super50 is because players are flying out of the Caribbean on October 10 to be in India by October 12,” Grave was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
“There will be a camp in Guwahati before the first ODI game in that city is played. The (benefit of the) Super50 now from the selectors’ point of view will be to look at players who aren’t in India and who don’t perform in India to (then) shuffle the pack for (the) Bangladesh (tour).”
“Bravo’s issue is that he’s playing in an all-rounder spot with Andre Russell, Pollard, Carlos Brathwaite, Rovman Powell who all did well in CPL, so there is a lot of options for selectors to choose from,” Grave said. “But once he performs in Super50, the door remains open for Dwayne.”
Grave, however, said that CPL performances would have a bearing on the T20I squad. “The T20 squad should reflect the best possible pool of players from CPL performances,” he said. (PTI)
