West Indies announce squad for white-ball tour of England

ANTIGUA: Cricket West Indies (CWI) on Tuesday, announced their white-ball squad for the upcoming tour of England, comprised of three ODIs and as many T20Is.

The squad features two changes from the group that fell agonisingly short of qualifying for the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup, scheduled to be played later this month.

Middle-order Chinelle Henry, who was West Indies' second-leading run-scorer at the ICC World Cup Qualifier in Pakistan, is set to miss the tour due to an injury, while Rashada Williams has been left out.

The duo is replaced by uncapped Jahzara Claxton and Realeanna Grimmond.

20-year-old all-rounder Grimmond finished as the fourth-highest run-scorer in the recently completed T20 Blaze competition in the Caribbean, while Claxton was part of the West Indies' squad for the ICC Women's Under-19 World Cup, played earlier this year.

Both Claxton and Grimmond are likely to make their international debuts in the upcoming white-ball assignment.

West Indies head coach Shane Dietz urged the selected players to take the upcoming tour as an opportunity to ‘reestablish’ themselves as the world-class team.

"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," Dietz 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 playing some good attacking cricket the West Indian way, he added.

West Indies Women's limited-overs squad: Hayley Matthews (c), Shemaine Campbelle (vice-capt), 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 and Stafanie Taylor.