ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – West In­dies white-ball cap­tain Shai Hope and ODI bat­ting sen­sa­tion Kea­cy Car­ty are set to make their re­turn to Test crick­et in the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed se­ries against Aus­tralia at home lat­er this month.

Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) has named both Hope and Car­ty in a 16-mem­ber squad to face the Aussies in a three-match se­ries start­ing June 25 at Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bar­ba­dos.

Hope, who re­cent­ly turned down the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be Test cap­tain, last played a Test match for West In­dies in 2021 against Sri Lan­ka at Galle.

He has played 38 Tests and scored 1726 runs at an av­er­age of 25.01, with two cen­turies and five fifties.

Mean­while, the 28-year-old Car­ty has played five Test match­es since mak­ing his de­but against South Africa last year.

Bran­don King, a mem­ber of the white-ball squad, is set to make his Test de­but, while fel­low open­er John Camp­bell al­so makes his re­turn to the squad.

All-rounder Kevlon An­der­son has been giv­en a maid­en call up to the se­nior team fol­low­ing a string of im­pres­sive per­for­mances in the Re­gion­al 4-Day com­pe­ti­tion, along with pac­er Jo­hann Layne, a 21-year-old prod­uct of the West In­dies Acad­e­my, who claimed 63 first-class wick­ets in 17 match­es.

Jay­den Seales, Alzarri Joseph, and Shamar Joseph head­line the fast-bowl­ing at­tack, which will be with­out the ser­vices of vet­er­an pac­er Ke­mar Roach who has not been in­clud­ed in the squad.

It will be the first Test se­ries in charge for Ros­ton Chase with Jomel War­ri­can as his deputy.

West In­dies head coach Daren Sam­my said he was ex­cit­ed about the team’s ex­cit­ing new ad­di­tions.

“We analysed what the top teams in the world are do­ing and what is need­ed for us to bridge the gap.

“We have iden­ti­fied a di­rec­tion, along with the group of play­ers and re­sources to give us the best ad­van­tage as we seek to take the team up lad­der and chal­lenge the best in the world,” Sam­my said.

“I’m ex­cit­ed about the in­clu­sion of young prospect Kevlon An­der­son, who comes in af­ter sol­id sea­sons in our do­mes­tic com­pe­ti­tions to help pro­vide sta­bil­i­ty in the top or­der, while the re­turn of Shai Hope is wel­comed giv­en his con­sis­ten­cy in white ball crick­et.

“Bran­don King’s in­clu­sion fits a role we have iden­ti­fied that needs spe­cial fo­cus to take our team to those clos­er to the top of the rank­ings,” he fur­ther added.

Sam­my al­so asked for pa­tience from the fans, as­sur­ing them that they could look for­ward to an ex­cit­ing brand of crick­et.

“I am tru­ly look­ing for­ward to this se­ries be­cause we want to start off strong­ly and make our home turf a fortress dur­ing this cy­cle, while hav­ing our pas­sion­ate and proud fans be­hind us.

“The match­es will be chal­leng­ing, but I be­lieve in this core of play­ers, and they are ea­ger to wear the ma­roon and make our fans hap­py,” Sam­my said.

Squad for Aus­tralia Test se­ries

WEST IN­DIES: Ros­ton Chase (cap­tain), Jomel War­ri­can (vice-cap­tain), Kevlon An­der­son, Kraigg Brath­waite, John Camp­bell, Kea­cy Car­ty, Justin Greaves, Shai Hope, Tevin Im­lach, Alzarri Joseph, Shamar Joseph, Bran­don King, Jo­hann Layne, Mikyle Louis, An­der­son Phillip, Jay­den Seales.

MAN­AGE­MENT: Daren Sam­my (head coach), Rawle Lewis (man­ag­er), Floyd Reifer (as­sis­tant coach), Ravi Ram­paul (as­sis­tant coach), Ray­on Grif­fith (as­sis­tant coach), Dr. De­nis Byam (phys­io­ther­a­pist), Ronald Rogers (strength and con­di­tion­ing coach), Darc Browne (mas­sage ther­a­pist), Ave­nesh See­taram (team an­a­lyst), Jerome Fos­ter (con­tent and me­dia of­fi­cer).

FULL MATCH SCHED­ULE

1st Test: June 25-29 at Kens­ing­ton Oval, Bar­ba­dos

2nd Test: Ju­ly 3-7 at Na­tion­al Sta­di­um, Grena­da

3rd Test: Ju­ly 12-16 at Sabi­na Park, Ja­maica DAY/NIGHT

CMC