Co-hosts of the T20 World Cup 2024, West Indies have announced their 15-member squad for the upcoming tournament ready to take place in Caribbean and the USA. Interestingly, Gaba Test hero Shamar Joseph has been picked and is ready to make his T20I debut in the tournament. Star batter Shimron Hetmyer has also made a comeback in the team after missing the recent T20I series against Australia. The RR star has 83 runs in the ongoing IPL 2024 season with a strike-rate of 184.44.
Shockingly, Kyle Mayers failed to make the cut with fast bowler Oshane Thomas also missing from the squad list. Key names like Shai Hope, Brandon Kings and Johnson Charles are expected to handle the middle-order with the likes Nicholas Pooran, Andre Russell, Rovman Powell and more joining in later.
Checkout the schedule of West Indies:
June 2: West Indies vs Papua New Guinea – Providence, Guyana
June 9: West Indies vs Uganda – Providence, Guyana
June 13: West Indies vs New Zealand – Tarouba, Trinidad and Tobago
June 18: West Indies vs Afghanistan – Gros Islet, Saint Lucia
Director of West Indies Cricket Desmond Haynes spoke about the big selection calls.
“We had a very long discussion with the situation of the batting line-up,” he said. “I want to state very clearly that our focus has always been (on) roles – roles that we want people to play. The situation of someone like Shamar Joseph, you really can’t question someone like him, we saw him in Australia. He ticked the boxes for us.
“It was some very close decisions, regarding the selection of Kyle Mayers and Shimron Hetmyer – but we looked at who we wanted the extra batter batting down the order.”
T20 World Cup 2024 WI Squad: Rovman Powell (c), Alzarri Joseph, Johnson Charles, Roston Chase, Shimron Hetmyer, Jason Holder, Shai Hope, Akeal Hosein, Shamar Joseph, Brandon King, Gudakesh Motie, Nicholas Pooran, Andre Russell, Sherfane Rutherford, Romario Shepherd.