West Indies defeated Bangladesh 2-0 in the three-match T20I series last month, and then lost 1-4 against India in the five-match series in the Caribbean and Florida. Also, the T20 series against New Zealand, consisting of three matches, was lost 2-1.
The T20 World Cup edition of 2022 will start in two months, and the competing teams are assembling a strong team for the major competition.
But in the case of the West Indies, they have not had the services of some of their key players in the recent past, which led to the two-time T20 World Champions losing back-to-back series against India and New Zealand.
Meanwhile, Haynes stated in a press conference held on Tuesday that not every player who plays in these tournaments will play in the T20 World Cup.
“We’ve had three or four competitions that we’ve been involved in and we believe this group of guys we must give them a chance.”
And,
“We are not going to say everybody playing these series will be playing in the World Cup, but we have to give these guys the opportunity.”
There are many people missing from the list. Russell, alongside Sunil Narine as per West Indies chief selector Desmond Haynes, the all-rounder is not available for selection.
“From what I have gathered, I think he (Russell) is unavailable because he hasn’t made himself available,” Haynes.
However, the Players like Rostan Chase, Sheldon Cottrell are out due to injuries and Febian Allen is out of the squad due to personal reasons, while the likes of destructive batsman Evin Lewis and Oshane Thomas are not eligible for selection due to fitness issues. Accordingly, Dr. Haynes said,
“We had to experiment a little because of injuries, because of logistics, because of a lot of things that have happened the last couple of tours, but I would say we’re on our way… we are still hoping that guys who perform well can put up their name of the World Cup.”
Commenting further, Dr. Desnond Haynes said that talent is very important and a suitable team will be selected using all the matches until the World Cup and the last selection window is the CPL.
“If you’ve got competition and somebody is playing well, I think his name should really come up for selection, so I think performance is very important to us. We did not say we have picked the World Cup team, so all the games leading up to the World Cup we must take them into consideration.”