Follow UsShai Hope and Oshane Thomas return to the West Indies squad for the T20 Internationals (T20I) against India, starting Thursday (August 3), Cricket West Indies (CWI) announced have announced. Thomas, who also earned a call-up to the One-Day Internationals (ODI), last played in the shortest format for the West Indies in December 2021, while Hope, the captain of the ODI side last turned up for his national side in the format in February 2022. There was also a call-up for Shimron Hetmyer, who has played in both the ODIs against India so far. He is set to play his first T20I for the West Indies since August 2022.
Hetmyer recently played a couple of matches in the Major League Cricket (MLC) for the Seattle Orcas, and earlier this year, he turned up for Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023, in which he scored 299 runs at a strike-rate of 151.77.
Shamarh Brooks, Raymon Reifer, Yannic Cariah and Sheldon Cottrell are among the four players dropped from the last 2-1 series win over South Africa. All 15 members of the squad will travel to all the matches, and it will further be cut to 13 for every match.
"The squad is selected with the next ICC Men's T20 World Cup in mind," lead selector Desmond Haynes said in a CWI release.
"We are looking at various plans as we try to find the right combinations. As we prepare, we are looking to build a unit which we believe can do the job when we host the global event in just under a year. We have some match-winners in our line-up and we will look to have the right kind of preparation, starting here in Trinidad on Thursday."
Haynes further added, “We also have other players who could come into consideration going forward, with the Caribbean Premier League starting next month, others will come into the reckoning.”
India go into the T20Is with a second-string side, with main players like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli rested for the series, with Hardik Pandya taking over as captain.
West Indies T20I squad vs India: Rovman Powell (c), Kyle Mayers (vc), Johnson Charles, Roston Chase, Shimron Hetmyer, Jason Holder, Shai Hope, Akeal Hosein, Alzarri Joseph, Brandon King, Obed McCoy, Nicholas Pooran, Romario Shepherd, Odean Smith, Oshane Thomas