The West Indies selectors sent a strong message to two of its top T20 players—Sunil Narine and Andre Russell as they were overlooked for the all-important T20 World Cup 2022 which will begin on October 13 in Australia. In a shock move, none of them were considered and instead of reconciling the two, chief selector Desmond Haynes told Ian Bishop, on the sidelines of CPL 2022, that they are looking to ‘move on.’
Sunil Narine and Andre Russell and perhaps two top shortest format players for West Indies. Moreover, they made a mark playing franchise cricket across the world. While Narine played a crucial role with Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL from 2011 onwards, Russell also made a mark with the same franchise when he was picked by the franchise in 2017. Presently, the duo is engaged in the CPL where there performance seemed good. Nevertheless, that didn’t change selectors’ minds.
“We had a meeting with Andre Russell earlier in the year,” Haynes told Ian Bishop. “We’re still not convinced yet, he’s not performing as well as we would like to see him in the competition. I think in the situation with Andre Russell, we’ve just decided to move on, and look for someone who’s in form, and doing well in the T20 format.”
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Furthermore, Haynes revealed that Narine seemed ‘not interested’ to play for West Indies despite having a conversation with skipper Nicholas Pooran.
“I did not get any notice from Narine regarding his availability to play. There were conversations that the captain was having with Narine, and from all reports, it seemed that he was not interested.
“Yes, again, the captain told me he’s reached out to Narine, but I’m not too sure he wants to play.”
West Indies cricket has been at crossroads with top players being uninterested to play for their country as they rake up huge money playing franchise cricket across the world. This was what Windies head coach Phil Simmons had also said. Earlier West Indies named their T20 World Cup squad on Wednesday and recalled Evin Lewis, moreover, they also named Nicholas Pooran as the skipper with Rovman Powell being his deputy.
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