Star players miss out as West Indies name squad for England

Experienced duo Chinelle Henry and Deandra Dottin are sidelined through injury as the West Indies revealed their 15-player squad for their white-ball tour of England that commences later this month.

Henry is nursing a leg injury she picked up during the recent T20 Blaze competition in the Caribbean, while Dottin is yet to fully recover from the knee problem she had during the Women's Premier League in India in March.

It opens the door for a pair of uncapped players to feature, with Jahzara Claxton and Realeanna Grimmond called into the touring party and in contention to feature during the six white-ball contests (three T20Is and three ODIs) against England from May 21.

Claxton is an all-rounder that was part of the West Indies' squad at the ICC Women's Under-19 World Cup earlier this year, while Grimmond is a top-order batter also yet to debut at international level.

The pair are the only new faces to the squad that narrowly missed out on progressing through to this year's ICC Women's Cricket World Cup via the Qualifier event in Pakistan, with Henry and Rashada Williams the players to drop out.

The Caribbean side will once again by led by star all-rounder Hayley Matthews, with Shemaine Campbelle the vice-captain and the likes of Karishma Ramharack, Stafanie Taylor and Afy Fletcher providing plenty of experience to the touring group.

West Indies coach Shane Deitz is looking forward to the tour and believes his team are well equipped to showcase their skills and mix it with the strong England side.

“Going to England is a fantastic opportunity to play one of the best teams in the world for a long time and to really test our skills and put in practice what we've talked about off the pitch," he said.

“The talk is cheap off the pitch; we're going to put that talk into action and go out against England and play some good cricket. We’ve got the T20Is first, and that's where we've played our better cricket in the past 12 to 18 months, so we're looking forward to getting the tour off to a good start and play some good attacking cricket the West Indian way.

“We brought a good team to England and we're looking forward to putting on a good performance for the for the crowd over there and all our supporters watching back in the Caribbean. It's going to be an excellent tour for us to re-establish ourselves as a world class team with world class players.”

“The girls have been working hard since the Pakistan qualification and playing some cricket at the T20 Blaze in the Caribbean. It's now time to switch up to international cricket, put on a good display and give our supporters something to cheer about back in the Caribbean.”

West Indies squad: Hayley Matthews (c), Shemaine Campbelle (vc), Aaliyah Alleyne, Jahzara Claxton, Afy Fletcher, Cherry Ann Fraser, Shabika Gajnabi, Jannillea Glasgow, Realeanna Grimmond, Zaida James, Qiana Joseph, Mandy Mangru, Ashmini Munisar, Karishma Ramharack, Stafanie Taylor

Series schedule:

T20I series

1st T20I - 21 May - The Spitfire Ground, Canterbury
2nd T20I - 23 May - The 1st Central County Ground, Hove
3rd T20I - 26 May - Ambassador Cruise Line Ground, Chelmsford

ODI series

1st ODI - 30 May - County Ground, Derby
2nd ODI - 4 June - Uptonsteel County Ground, Leicester
3rd ODI - 7 June - The Cooper Associates County Ground, Taunton