ST JOHN’S, An­tigua—Bran­don King will cap­tain a sig­nif­i­cant­ly weak­ened West In­dies squad which will play Afghanistan in three T20Is be­gin­ning next Mon­day.

Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) an­nounced a 16-mem­ber squad on Mon­day that does not in­clude sev­er­al of its key play­ers, in­clud­ing white-ball cap­tain Shai Hope, Ros­ton Chase, Sher­fane Ruther­ford, Ja­son Hold­er, Akeal Ho­sein, Rov­man Pow­ell or Ro­mario Shep­herd, for the tour of the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates which runs from Jan­u­ary 19 to 22.

While West In­di­ans will be pleased to see the re­turn of pac­er Shamar Joseph from in­jury, ques­tions will be asked about the non-in­clu­sion of fel­low fast bowler Alzarri Joseph, who has been out of ac­tion since last Sep­tem­ber due to in­jury.

“Alzarri Joseph, who was al­so side­lined by in­jury to­wards the end of 2025, had been mak­ing en­cour­ag­ing progress in his re­turn-to-play pro­gramme but has not been in­clud­ed at this stage as a pre­cau­tion fol­low­ing med­ical re­view,” CWI said in an­nounc­ing the team.

King, who pre­vi­ous­ly led the West In­dies in T20 In­ter­na­tion­als—in­clud­ing dur­ing the home se­ries against South Africa in ear­ly 2024—will be at the helm for the se­ries, which will serve as cru­cial prepa­ra­tion ahead of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup sched­uled to be­gin on Feb­ru­ary 6 in In­dia and Sri Lan­ka.

Hope, along with Chase, Ho­sein and Ruther­ford, were un­avail­able for se­lec­tion due to com­mit­ments in the on­go­ing SA20 tour­na­ment, while Hold­er, Pow­ell and Shep­herd have been grant­ed rest as part of work­load man­age­ment.

Vet­er­an open­er Evin Lewis has been named in the squad af­ter re­cov­er­ing from in­jury, while Guyanese all-rounder Quentin Samp­son has earned a maid­en in­ter­na­tion­al call-up fol­low­ing im­pres­sive per­for­mances in last year’s Break­out League and Caribbean Pre­mier League.

Shim­ron Het­my­er, who last played a T20I for the West In­dies in Ju­ly 2025, has al­so earned a re­call.

Head coach, Daren Sam­my, not­ed that in ad­di­tion to be­ing utilised as a fine-tun­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty ahead of the ICC World Cup, he said the se­ries would al­so serve as rein­te­gra­tion process for key play­ers com­ing off sig­nif­i­cant pe­ri­ods of ab­sence.

“The op­por­tu­ni­ty to play com­pet­i­tive match­es in sub­con­ti­nen­tal con­di­tions is ide­al, as it as­sists with our prepa­ra­tions and con­fi­dence build­ing ahead of what will be a com­pet­i­tive T20 World Cup.

“It al­so presents a valu­able plat­form to as­sess play­ers who would’ve missed sig­nif­i­cant time to­wards the end of 2025, as well as those step­ping in­to im­por­tant roles for this se­ries, pri­or to the se­lec­tion of the fi­nal squad for the in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ment,” Sam­my said.

The squad will de­part the Caribbean on Jan­u­ary 14 and is sched­uled to ar­rive in the UAE on Jan­u­ary 16. (CMC)

SQUAD

WEST IN­DIES: Bran­don King (cap­tain), Al­ick Athanaze, Kea­cy Car­ty, John­son Charles, Matthew Forde, Justin Greaves, Amir Jan­goo, Shamar Joseph, Evin Lewis, Gu­dakesh Motie, Khary Pierre, Quentin Samp­son, Jay­den Seales, Ra­mon Sim­monds, Shamar Springer, Shim­ron Het­my­er.

MAN­AGE­MENT UNIT: Daren Sam­my (head coach), Rawl Lewis (man­ag­er), Floyd Reifer (as­sis­tant coach/bat­ting), Ravi Ram­paul (as­sis­tant coach/bowl­ing), Ray­on Grif­fith (as­sis­tant coach/field­ing), Dr De­nis Byam (phys­io­ther­a­pist), Darc Browne (strength & con­di­tion­ing coach), Fitzbert Al­leyne (mas­sage ther­a­pist), Ave­nesh See­taram (per­for­mance an­a­lyst), Jerome Fos­ter (con­tent & me­dia of­fi­cer).

Full Tour Sched­ule:

1st T20I: 19th Jan­u­ary 2026 @ Dubai, UAE

2nd T20I: 21st Jan­u­ary 2026 @ Dubai, UAE

3rd T20I: 22nd Jan­u­ary 2026 @ Dubai, UAE