The background:
High-profile stars like Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard, Sunil Narine and Dwayne Bravo have not played for Windies for quite some time now. With Cricket Windies (CWI) following a stringent policy of considering only those players who have featured in the domestic 50-over competition, the top names missed out on getting a place in the team. However, with the two-time World Cup-winners are in danger of missing out on a direct berth for the 2019 World Cup, the board is keen to rope in the top names to ensure a qualification for cricket’s showpiece event in England.
The story:
The Cricket Windies after conducting meetings with the West Indies Players Association reached a temporary agreement to allow the sidelined players play for the national team again.
“The agreement forms part of a wider strategy to be more inclusive and to improve player relations aimed at re-engaging all players within our system so that they can perform at their best for the Windies Teams,” CWI chief executive Johnny Grave said.
Ranked ninth, Windies are in a race against time to ensure an automatic qualification to the next World Cup. The top-eight ranked teams will be gain their spot for the upcoming World Cup while the remaining 10 teams would have to go through a qualifying tournament to make it to the event. And with only the top-two teams allowed to qualify for the World Cup, the board is keen to have a team which can do well.
“We recognise that it is highly unlikely that we will now automatically qualify for the 2019 World Cup. So whilst the qualifying tournament has yet to be confirmed by ICC, we may only have eight ODIs against England and New Zealand in the next six months to prepare. It is crucial that we can have our best-performing Windies players available for selection in these important games,” Grave said.
Meanwhile, Windies, who are trailing eighth-placed Sri Lanka by 10 points, will have a chance to close the gap down during their tour of England, which starts next month. The Windies are likely to name a full strength squad for the five-match series against Eoin Morgan’s side.