West In­dies coach Phil Sim­mons re­gret­ted the fact that ex­ter­nal in­flu­ences did not al­low the re-in­clu­sion of Dwayne Bra­vo and Kieron Pol­lard in the ODI squad. West In­dies are tour­ing Sri Lan­ka for a one-month tour that be­gins from Oc­to­ber 14 and in­cludes two Tests, three ODIs and two T20Is.

Sim­mons, who took charge of the West In­dies squad af­ter the 2015 World Cup, said that the Chair­man of se­lec­tors Clive Lloyd and cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er want­ed to in­clude Bra­vo and Pol­lard in the squad but cer­tain peo­ple used their in­flu­ence to over­rule the de­ci­sion.

Speak­ing to the re­porters on the fi­nal day of the West In­dies camp at the 3Ws Oval in Bar­ba­dos crit­i­cized the in­ter­fer­ence and went on to say that such pol­i­tics has kept West In­dies from hav­ing their best squad. How­ev­er, he did not spec­i­fy who ex­act­ly was re­spon­si­ble for the pol­i­tics.

"I think it's dis­ap­point­ing from the fact that I haven't got the best 50-over ODI squad that we can se­lect in the Caribbean," a fu­ri­ous Sim­mons said. "The chair­man, Mr Lloyd, he came and he gave an ex­cep­tion­al speech say­ing that he thinks it is time they are back in the squad and he gave ex­cep­tion­al rea­sons for them be­ing back in the squad."

"Un­for­tu­nate­ly, when we went in­to the se­lec­tion (meet­ing), we lost it 2-3. Him and my­self–the cap­tain doesn't have a vote in this–but the cap­tain al­so gave his views as why they need to be back."

"That's not the dis­ap­point­ing fact, the dis­ap­point­ing fact is that you can lose 3-2 in a vote-off but there is too much in­ter­fer­ence from out­side in the se­lec­tion of the ODI squad and it's dis­ap­point­ing for me to know that in any as­pect of life (peo­ple would use) their po­si­tion to get peo­ple in­to a squad for in this case, get peo­ple left out of a squad. It is wrong and I don't like it and that is my beef with the se­lec­tion of the ODI team."

"I don't think that it (se­lec­tion) was done as pro­fes­sion­al­ly as it should be done, (there was) too much in­ter­fer­ence from out­side and in this case, I even go as far as say­ing maybe in­flu­ence be­cause the rea­sons that were giv­en for them be­ing out," Sim­mons lashed out. "It's dis­ap­point­ing for me be­cause we want to have our best squad, the chair­man put it to us that we need to have our best squad and it's not so, so I'm dis­ap­point­ed about that squad."