With Chinelle Henry and Deandra Dottin ruled out of the West Indies squad, two uncapped players, Jahzara Claxton and Realeanna Grimmond, have been called out for England ODIs.
Jahzara Claxton is an all-rounder who was named in the West Indies’ squad at the ICC Women’s U-19 World Cup earlier this year, while Grimmond is a top-order batter also yet to debut at the international level.
The pair are the only new faces to the squad that narrowly missed out on progressing through to this year’s Women’s Cricket World Cup via the Qualifier event in Pakistan, with Henry and Rashada Williams the player to drop out.
The West Indies squad will once again be led by star all-rounder Hayley Matthews, with Shemaine Campbelle the vice captain.
Meanwhile, the inclusion of Karishma Ramharack, Stafanie Taylor and Afy Fletcher brings in experience to the squad.
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.”
The tour will begin with three match T20I series on May 21 while the ODI series will begin on May 30.
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
