Dwayne Bravo will have to prove himself first to get a place in the Windies squad, say Johnny Grave

10/07/2018

Windies Cricket Chief executive Johny Grave has stated that all-rounder Dwayne Bravo will first have to perform in the regional Super 50 Tournament to make it to the West Indies ODI squad. There is a long ongoing tussle ongoing between the governing body and the senior West Indian players.

Last time the Windies team toured India in 2014-15, it became an ugly affair as the tour was curtailed midway due to the payment issues between the West Indian Cricket Board and its players. Since then nothing has been the same in West Indies Cricket with many senior players preferring the cash-rich T20 leagues over the National duties. Bravo, being one of the senior players, is yet to play an ODI for West Indies since his last ODI match in 2014.

"Bravo's issue is that he's playing in an allrounder spot with Andre Russell, Pollard, Carlos Brathwaite, Rovman Powell who all did well in CPL, so there is a lot of options for selectors to choose from. But once he performs in Super50, the door remains open for Dwayne," Grave told Newsday.

"The [benefit of the] Super50 now from the selectors' point of view will be to look at players who aren't in India and who don't perform in India to shuffle the pack for Bangladesh ."

The West Indies Cricket board recently announced a list of 25 players who are in the process to acquire Indian Visas for the ODI series which will begin on October 21st.

"The reason the [longlist for the] ODI team was picked before Super50 is because players are flying out of the Caribbean on October 10 to be in India by October 12. There will be a camp in Guwahati before the first ODI game in that city is played," Grave said.

India will also play a three-match T20 series against the West Indies side starting on 4th November. However, Bravo will have to wait and watch whether he will be picked for the T20 series or not as he is a regular T20 player all over the world.

"The T20 squad should reflect the best possible pool of players from CPL performances."