All-rounder Andre Russell has been excluded from the ODI and T20I squads of West Indies for the upcoming series against India. Cricket West Indies (CWI) confirmed this news on Thursday. Dwayne Bravo has also been left out of the T20I squad. He had earlier hinted that he could retract his decision to retire and play again for the national team.
With Fabien Allen recovering from his knee injury, he has found his way into the T20I squad. West Indies had earlier defeated Afghanistan 3-0 in the ODI series, but the side ended up losing the T20I series 2-1.
West-Indies coach Phil Simmons gives his opinion on the team:
Simmons gave an official statement regarding this arrangement. He said, “We have three matches in each format, so we wanted to give each squad a chance to compete against India. No disrespect to Afghanistan, but facing India will be a more difficult series, especially in the ODI. Our players really the hang of thing with the 3-0 series win and I believe we will move from strength to strength.”
“In the T20s this will be another chance for them to play and development, and again no disrespect to Afghanistan, this should be a stronger T20 country, and we will look to see how they perform against India,” he added.
Opening batsman Chris Gayle announced that he would be taking a break from cricket and it was the reason behind his exclusion from the squad. As men’s T20 World Cup is scheduled to start from next year, the team has included youngsters like Brandon King and Hayden Walsh Jr.
“The next World Cup is in Australia (2020) and the one after that is here in India (2021) so there is a lot of preparation to be done for first for Australia, so we have given the players here a chance in this series, and we know we have players outside who may be coming in later on as well, so it’s good to give those here another opportunity,” Simmons said.
