5 Guyanese in Windies A Squad for South Africa ‘Tests’
…Imlach named Vice Captain
The Cricket West Indies (CWI) Senior Men’s Selection Panel on Sunday named the West Indies A Team for the upcoming tour of South Africa.
The West Indies will play three four-day Test matches against South Africa A from November 21 to December 8, with a 14-member squad that boasts five Guyanese.
Joshua Da Silva, the wicketkeeper-batsman has again been named as Captain following the West Indies A victory in the series in Bangladesh earlier this year. Guyanese Tevin Imlach, the other wicket-keeper-batsman, has been named Vice Captain.
Tevin Imlach will take up the Vice Captain role in the A team
The 14-member squad includes five players with Test match experience: Da Silva; batsmen Kirk McKenzie and Tagenarine Chanderpaul; along with fast bowlers Jayden Seales and Shermon Lewis.
The squad also includes three newcomers to the international level: Kevlon Anderson, a right-handed batsman; fast bowler Shamar Joseph, and all-rounder Abhijai Mansingh. All three made their first-class debuts earlier this year.
Tagenarine Chanderpaul
Andre Coley is the Head Coach for the tour. The Assistant Coaches are Jimmy Adams, the former West Indies Test captain and Shaun Tait, the former Australia fast bowler.
Lead Selector Desmond Haynes stated that the panel picked a balanced team to give the players more exposure in overseas conditions, similarly to the previous A Team tour to Bangladesh earlier this year. The panel also outlined that with the overlap between the England men’s white-ball tour of the West Indies and this tour, the squad was picked with the development of players’ red-ball skills in mind.
Shemar Joseph
Haynes said: “We had a very good A Team tour to Bangladesh earlier this year, when were saw a number of players improve and grow. That tour was great for development in the red-ball format – we saw some excellent individual performances which led to the team’s overall success. Now with continued investment by CWI in our players, we want to see the same kind of progress on this trip to South Africa.”
Kevlon Anderson
Haynes added: “Da Silva did an outstanding job as captain in the ‘Tests’ in Bangladesh and he is again the captain for this tour. Anderson is a young batsman who has benefitted immensely from his time in the West Indies Academy, and we saw his quality of batsmanship in the Headley-Weekes Tri Series. Mansingh showed quality with bat and ball in the first-class competition and gets this opportunity to showcase his skills and progress. Joseph is a young fast bowler who has impressed everyone with his genuine pace, his tremendous fitness and a huge desire to gain more knowledge about the game. You can see he wants to learn and get better.”
Match Schedule
November 21 to 24: vs South Africa “A” at Willowmoore Park, Benoni
November 28 to December 1: vs South Africa “A” at Buffalo Park, East London
December 5 to 8: vs South Africa “A” at Mangaung Oval, Bloemfontein
