The West Indies Cricket Board today announced the West Indies squad to contest the Cricket World Cup 2015 in Australia and New Zealand.
Jason Holder (Captain)
Marlon Samuels (Vice Captain)
Sulieman Benn
Darren Bravo
Jonathan Carter
Sheldon Cottrell
Christopher Gayle
Sunil Narine
Denesh Ramdin
Kemar Roach
Andre Russell
Darren Sammy
Lendl Simmons
Dwayne Smith
Jerome Taylor
Chairman of the Selection Panel Clive Lloyd said he has high hopes for the squad which is a competitive mix of experienced players and some fresh faces.
“I believe we have selected a very good team which will do West Indies proud at the World Cup. We have a good mixture of some good seasoned players and some good youngsters who will fly the West Indies flag in Australia and New Zealand,” Lloyd said.
“If they play to their potential I am quite sure we will do very well. I have really high hopes in this team – I believe they can do something special. We have the talent and if we can play to our potential we have a very good chance of lifting that trophy,” Lloyd said.
Lloyd, a double world cup winning captain (1975 and 1979), said that the prestige of the Cricket World Cup offers a significant opportunity for the team to bring pride to the Caribbean region similar to the success of the West Indies team in the ICC World Twenty20 in 2012.
“This is a very prestigious world event, one of the biggest sporting events on the international calendar and it is a huge opportunity to create something historic and memorable for West Indies cricket and the people of the region,” Lloyd said.
Highly rated off spinner Sunil Narine returns to the Jason Holder captained squad and will share spin duties with left armer Sulieman Benn. Also returning to the squad is top order batsman Darren Bravo who had taken time away from the game to address some personal matters. Fast bowler Kemar Roach returns after suffering an injury in the recently completed Test series against South Africa.
Seasoned batsman Marlon Samuels has been appointed Vice Captain.
The most experienced ODI player in the squad is opener Chris Gayle with 258 appearances. Samuels (162), Denesh Ramdin (115) and Darren Sammy (115) all have over a hundred ODI games under their belts. Dwayne Smith (94) could achieve his 100th appearance during the Cricket World Cup.
The squad has a total of 1156 ODI appearances with only Sheldon Cottrell and Jonathan Carter yet to debut internationally. Carter and Cottrell are both in the West Indies ODI squad to face South Africa in a five match series to commence shortly.
The Cricket World Cup commences on February 14th with West Indies playing their opening match on February 16th against Ireland.
Jason Holder – captain. LOL LOL LOl LOL. That West Indies Board just showing every day how inept they are. I’m not even commenting on the other decisions re the omitment of Bravo and Pollard.
Though I respect the bold move by the selectors, I disagree with the selection of Ben and Cottrell as they don’t pose any threat to the opposition. I believe they need some more T20 games to understand the nature of the game. Dwayne Bravo should have a better replacement in the form of a good all rounder from Guyana and Pollard with someone as effective as him with some experience.
No disrespect to holder but I think West Indies selectors are gambling the game of cricket. To take holder as the captain when you have so much more exeperince guys on the team fight for cricket supremacy on an international level is telling the world our management meant team doesn’t have a clue of what they are doing . If they do have a dismal failure in this World Cup they are going to blame the inexperience captain where the should be blaming themself West Indies cricket has become the laughing matter of the world what a disgrace
Seems to me that if the experienced players are comited enough they will support the young captain right ?
Holder can definitely hold his place in the team… he’s young, should be creative .. and seems quite intelligent … He’s a good choice as leader.
I wish to support the WICB and cricket selectors for their brave move. Bravo and Polard have shown no commitment to West Indies since the inception of the IPL. Their commitment has been the IPL, Big Bash to name a few. On many occasions in the past, they were picked to represent Trinidad and choose to play in the IPL instead. Last year, Polard represented Barbados as Captain in the CPL and won the championship, he chose to represent an IPL team during the World championship which included Barbados. Great job Mr. Lloyd and team.
I hope you guys select our home boy to play verses Australia in Dominica. Now Dominica is the main revenue for the West Indies in cricket so give the Dominican fans something to cheer.