West Indies picks provisional World Cup squad

Cricket with Dalchand Bissoon

Ravi Rampaul – surprise omission.
Ravi Rampaul – surprise omission.

The West Indies Cricket Board Selectors last Monday named the 30-man provisional squad for the ICC Cricket World Cup to be played in Australia and New Zealand in February and March.

The squad includes six uncapped players:

Left-arm medium pacer Kenroy Peters from the Windward Islands; leg-spinner Imran Khan from Trinidad & Tobago; off-spinner Ashley Nurse from Barbados; 19-year-old fast bowler Marquino Mindley from Jamaica; 22-year-old left-hand opening batsman Evin Lewis from Trinidad & Tobago and allrounder Jonathan Carter from Barbados.

A surprise omission to the squad is fast bowler Ravi Rampaul, who has played in 90 ODIs since making his debut for the West Indies against Zimbabwe at Bulawayo, in 2003. He last played for the West Indies in two ODIs during the tour of India last October, before the series was cancelled due to a dispute between the West Indies players and the West Indies Players Association.

He has taken 115 wickets in his 86 innings. He also appeared in 18 Tests with 49 wickets since his debut against Australia at Brisbane in November 2009 and last played against Bangladesh at Dhaka in November 2012.

The 30-man squad consists of:

Sulieman Benn, Carlos Brathwaite, Darren Bravo, Dwayne Bravo, Jonathan Carter, Sheldon Cottrell, Miguel Cummins, Narsingh Deonarine, Andre Fletcher, Chris Gayle, Jason Holder, Imran Khan, Leon Johnson, Evin Lewis, Nikita Miller, Marquino Mindley, Sunil Narine, Ashley Nurse, Kenroy Peters, Veerasammy Permaul, Kieron Pollard, Denesh Ramdin, Kemar Roach, Andre Russell, Darren Sammy, Marlon Samuels, Lendi Simmons, Dwayne Smith, Devon Smith and Jerome Taylor.

The West Indies will play in Pool B in the preliminary round of the 11th edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup. They will play alongside defending champions India, Ireland, Pakistan, South Africa, United Arab Emirates and Zimbabwe.

They will be engaged in two warmup matches before the tournament starts, the first against England on Monday, Feb. 9 at Sydney Cricket Ground and the second against Scotland on Thursday, Feb.12 at the same venue. Their first match is against Ireland on Monday, Feb.16 at Saxton Oval, Nelson.

The tournament starts Saturday, Feb. 14 with the first match in Pool A – New Zealand vs Sri Lanka at Hagley Oval, Christchurch.