West Indies to announce T20 World Cup squad after Afghanistan series

ST JOHN’S, Antigua (CMC):

Cricket West Indies (CWI) will not name their West Indies squad for next month’s ICC T20 World Cup until the end of their upcoming three-match T20I series against Afghanistan.

This was revealed by CWI’s Director of Cricket Miles Bascombe, who said the team will be announced following the final T20I, which is scheduled to be played on January 22. The first match is set to be played on January 19, with the second match two days later.

The majority of countries have already named their provisional squads for the February 7 to March 8 tournament, which will be co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka.

However, speaking on WESN TV on Saturday, Bascombe disclosed that the World Cup squad would be named “within 48 hours” after the final match against Afghanistan.

“We have taken the decision not to name our squad until after the Afghanistan series.

“We have the good fortune of having Afghanistan and South Africa before we head into the warm-up matches for the World Cup, so the idea is that we use Afghanistan to sort of finalise our squad,” Bascombe explained.

“We didn’t like the idea of naming a provisional squad and then having to announce changes to that squad. We submitted a provisional squad as we had to, but we did inform the ICC that following that series against Afghanistan, that is when we will formalise our squad.”