(CMC) – Former West Indies Test stars Shai Hope and Shane Dowrich will lead two of the three squads in the Barbados Legends Series, which serves as preparation for the Regional First Class Championship beginning next month.
The 29-year-old Hope will captain the Sir Garfield Sobers squad while Dowrich, 31, will take charge of the Sir Gordon Greenidge squad.
Batsman Nicholas Kirton, 24, who played three first class games for Barbados nearly four years ago, will lead the Sir Charles Griffith squad.
Following the three-match January 6-17 tournament, selectors will choose the Barbados Pride squad for the regional championship.
Both Hope and Dowrich have found themselves sidelined from Test selection in recent years. The stylish Hope was tipped for greatness after hundreds in both innings of the Headingley Test five years ago but averaged 21 from 25 Tests since.
He was dropped following the historic bio-secure Test tour of England in 2020, recalled for four matches the following year but averaged only 15 and was dropped again.
Hope has, however, continued to score heavily in One-Day Internationals where he averages nearly 49 from 104 matches with 13 hundreds.
Dowrich, meanwhile, has not featured for West Indies ever since his abrupt departure from the 2020 tour of New Zealand due to “personal reasons”.
He was replaced on that tour by Joshua Da Silva who has continued since then as first choice wicketkeeper.
Dowrich, who has played 35 Tests, returned to first class action for the first time in 14 months last February for the shortened regional first class championship.
A compact right-hander, Dowrich had a disappointing campaign, averaging only 27 from five matches with a single fifty.
Twenty-four year-old Chemar Holder, who played a single Test for West Indies on the 2020 New Zealand tour, along with fellow fast bowler Keon Harding, 26, who featured in a single ODI in Bangladesh two years ago, will suit up for the Legends Series.
