BASSETERRE, St Kitts, Jul 30, CMC – Fit-again all-rounders Marlon Samuels and Andre Russell have returned to the West Indies Twenty20 side while talisman Chris Gayle has been rested, in a 13-man squad named to face Bangladesh in the three-match Twenty20 International series starting here Tuesday night.
The squad, belatedly announced late yesterday and almost 24 hours before the first game at Warner Park here, sees little change from the unit which contested the Hurricane Relief T20 at Lord’s earlier this year.
Veteran Samuels and fellow Jamaican star Russell have both recovered from injury to take their place in the squad. While Samuel missed the preceding one-day series, Russell played the first game before being forced to miss the remaining two fixtures.
Opener Gayle, who gathered 142 runs in the ODI series, will sit out the rubber that features the last two matches at the Central Broward Regional Park in Fort Lauderdale, United States.
“We have rested Chris Gayle and have added left-arm pacer, Sheldon Cottrell for variety to the bowling attack,” said chief selector Courtney Browne.
“The team reflects the last squad that performed well in the charity match in the UK.”
Cottrell last played a T20 for West Indies on the tour of New Zealand earlier this year, and is coming off a stint in the recent Global T20 Canada league where he grabbed 16 wickets for Vancouver Knights.
In fact, most of the squad are coming off outings in the inaugural tournament in Toronto, a tournament which Browne said had provided the ideal environment for the Windies B side players to grab the attention of selectors.
“The strong performances of the young players in the Windies B team during the T20 series in the Canada’s Global T20 League and this augurs well for our T20 game.”
The opening game here bowls off at 8 pm while the Florida doubleheader at the weekend is carded for the same time.
West Indies swept the Test series 2-0 while Bangladesh rebounded to capture the ODI series 2-1, winning the decisive third match by 18 runs at Warner Park here on Saturday.
SQUAD – Carlos Brathwaite (captain), Samuel Badree, Sheldon Cottrell, Andre Fletcher, Marlon Samuels, Evin Lewis, Andre Russell, Denesh Ramdin, Rovman Powell, Keemo Paul, Ashley Nurse, Chadwick Walton, Kesrick Williams.
