ST. JOHN’S, An­tigua – West In­dies “A” have been forced to make sev­er­al last-minute changes to their squad for the first “Test” against In­dia “A”, start­ing to­day at the Vi­vian Richards Crick­et Ground.

Open­er Kraigg Brath­waite and wick­et­keep­er/bats­man Shane Dowrich have sus­tained an­kle in­juries in the last few days and have been or­dered to rest for the first “Test”.

Al­so, John Camp­bell has been el­e­vat­ed to the se­nior West In­dies squad to face the se­nior In­dia side in the first two MyTeam11 Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­als, co-spon­sored by Sko­da, tak­ing place on Au­gust 3 and 4 at the Broward Coun­ty Sta­di­um in Lauder­hill, Flori­da, USA.

As a re­sult, the Lee­ward Is­lands Hur­ri­canes’ pair of wick­et­keep­er/bats­man Jah­mar Hamil­ton and open­er Montcin Hodge will re­place Dowrich and Camp­bell re­spec­tive­ly, and T&T's left-hand­ed open­er Je­re­my Solozano will re­place Brath­waite.

Solozano will al­so act as cov­er for Brath­waite for the sec­ond “Test”, start­ing the fol­low­ing next Wednes­day at the Queen’s Park Oval in his na­tive T&T.

Shamarh Brooks will now cap­tain West In­dies “A” in the first “Test” and may al­so lead the team in the sec­ond “Test” if Brath­waite is un­able to play.

Mean­while, West In­dies A cap­tain Ros­ton Chase has de­scribed the just-con­clud­ed one-day se­ries against In­dia A as “dif­fi­cult” but said the hosts fan­cied their chances in the three four-day “Tests” bowl­ing off to­day.

The hosts suf­fered a 4-1 thump­ing in the five-match one-day se­ries, their on­ly win com­ing in the fourth match when they scraped home by five runs in a tense fin­ish at Coolidge Crick­et Ground.

Chase point­ed to his side’s strug­gles with the bat, es­pe­cial­ly in the mid­dle overs, as the source of their poor form.

“It was a dif­fi­cult se­ries, see­ing the re­sult 4-1 but I just thought that we fell down main­ly in the mid­dle overs [when] bat­ting,” Chase ex­plained.

“I thought we got some good starts in the lat­ter games but in the mid­dle overs we lost too many wick­ets at im­por­tant times in the game and that brought them back in­to the game too of­ten. That’s where we re­al­ly fell down in the se­ries.”

His point was no more ev­i­dent than in Sun­day’s fi­nal match at Coolidge which West In­dies A lost by eight wick­ets.

They were coast­ing at 71 with­out loss in the 14th over but once the open­ing part­ner­ship be­tween Sunil Am­bris (61) and Kjorn Ot­t­ley (21) was bro­ken, Windies A lost their way as sev­en wick­ets tum­bled for 47 runs.

Sher­fane Ruther­ford’s 65 helped them re­cov­er to reach 236 all out but In­dia A got the re­quired runs in a can­ter, with Ru­tu­raj Gaik­wad (99), Shub­man Gill (69) and Shreyas Iy­er (61 not out) all gath­er­ing half-cen­turies.

Chose said as the se­ries had pro­gressed, In­dia A’s bats­men had be­come more fa­mil­iar with the home side’s bowl­ing.

“In the bowl­ing de­part­ment I thought ear­ly on in the se­ries we re­al­ly hit our marks, [we bowled] good lines and lengths and we field­ed well,” he point­ed out.

“But com­ing on to the end of the se­ries, I think the [In­dia A] bats­men worked out our plans and they got the bet­ter of us.”

Chase will be a part of the “Test” squad which will clash with In­dia A in the open­er at the Vi­vian Richards Crick­et Ground.

He will be joined by ex­pe­ri­enced open­er Kraigg Brath­waite, who played no part in the one-day se­ries, as one of 10 play­ers with Test ex­pe­ri­ence in the line-up.

And Chase be­lieves West In­dies A will be more at home in the longer for­mat.

“I’m look­ing for­ward to be­ing more com­pet­i­tive in that se­ries,” he not­ed.

“I think we’ll do a bet­ter job where the pace of the game is a lit­tle slow­er and we have more time to think and strate­gize what we’re look­ing to do. I’m look­ing for­ward to that and hope­ful­ly, we can come out in a bet­ter po­si­tion in that se­ries.

West In­dies Squad

Shamarh Brooks (Cap­tain), Sunil Am­bris, Jer­maine Black­wood, Ros­ton Chase, Rah­keem Corn­wall, Miguel Cum­mins, Jah­mar Hamil­ton, Montcin Hodge, Chemar Hold­er, Sher­mon Lewis, Ray­mon Reifer, Je­re­my Solozano and Jomel War­ri­can.

Team Man­age­ment Unit

Es­uan Cran­don (Head Coach)

An­drew Richard­son (As­sis­tant Coach)

An­dre Co­ley (As­sis­tant Coach)

Neil Bar­ry, Jr (Phys­io­ther­a­pist)

Gre­go­ry Seale (Strength & Con­di­tion­ing Coach)

Ave­nesh See­taram (An­a­lyst)