West Indies Set To Snub Big Names For India ODIs

West Indies are set to miss the services of Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and Sunil Narine for their upcoming five-match One-Day International series against India. As per reports in Newsday, the trio’s names do not figure in the list of 25 players told by Cricket West Indies (CWI) to obtain Indian visas.

West Indies is yet to announce the squad for the ODIs but the board has already started the process of sorting out the paperwork of the players who are in frame for the series. The board, meanwhile, are also unlikely to consider the performances of the players in the regional one-day competition, which started on October 3.

Johnny Grave, the Cricket West Indies chief executive, told Newsday that the timing of the India series compelled the board to take such a decision.

“The reason the [longlist 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 said. “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],” he added.

For quite some time now, West Indies have been picking their ODI squad on the basis of players’ performance in the regional one-day games. This is one of the reasons why several big names have fallen out of favour with the board as they have priorities overseas T20 leagues.

Dwayne Bravo, one of the finest T20 allrounders in the world, has not featured in an ODI since 2014. On his chances of making it to the ODI squad,  Grave said there would particularly be a lot of competition for the allrounder’s spot in the ODI line-up, so Bravo would need to work his way in. At the same time, Grave assured that the door will open for Bravo once he performs in Super50.

“Bravo’s issue is that he’s playing in an allrounder 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.”

Bravo is likely to make it to the T20 team after leading Trinbago Knight Riders to their second successive CPL title as Grave said 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.

Meanwhile, West Indies are currently playing the Test series against India. The visitors have already lost the first Test. The second and final Test gets underway on October 12 at Hyderabad.

The five-match ODI series will begin on 21 October at Guwahati, followed by the second ODI on 24 October at Indore and third ODI at Pune on 27 October. The final two ODIs will be held at Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram on 29 October and 1 November.

The ODIs will be followed by the three T20 Internationals to be held at Kolkata (4 November), Lucknow (6 November) and Chennai (11 November).

West Indies Tour of India 2018, ODI Matches:

First ODI – October 21, Guwahati

Second ODI – October 24, Indore

Third ODI – October 27, Pune

Fourth ODI – October 29, Mumbai

Fifth ODI – November 1, Thiruvananthapuram

West Indies Tour of India 2018, T20 Matches:

First T20 – November 4, Kolkata

Second T20 – November 6, Lucknow

Third T20 – November 11, Chennai.