ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Fol­low­ing an im­pres­sive show­ing in the on­go­ing Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) Kamil Pooran has earned a maid­en callup to the West In­dies T20I squad to face In­dia in their up­com­ing white-ball tour of the sub­con­ti­nent.

The 30-year-old open­ing bats­man was named in the West In­dies’ 15-man squad, which was re­vealed by Crick­et West In­dies on Sat­ur­day and al­so sees the re­call of ex­cit­ing low­er or­der bat­ter Quentin Samp­son.

The re­gion­al side will take on the top ranked In­dia in three One Day In­ter­na­tion­als from Sep­tem­ber 27 to Oc­to­ber 3, be­fore play­ing a five-match T20I se­ries that runs from Oc­to­ber 6 to 17.

Pooran is cur­rent­ly the sev­enth high­est run scor­er in this year’s CPL, de­spite his St Lu­cia Kings fail­ing to make the play­offs.

He scored 273 runs in eight in­nings at an av­er­age of 39 with a strike rate of 159.64.

Mean­while, Samp­son, who was dropped for the T20I se­ries ear­li­er this year against Sri Lan­ka, makes his re­turn af­ter a de­cent show­ing in the CPL for the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors, where he scored 141 runs in 12 match­es at an av­er­age of 28.20.

CWI con­firmed that vet­er­an all-rounder Ja­son Hold­er has been rest­ed for the se­ries.

Head coach Daren Sam­my said the team had been se­lect­ed with a clear fo­cus on long-term ob­jec­tives.

“We are look­ing to build on the mo­men­tum from our se­ries win against Sri Lan­ka, with the long-term goal of de­vel­op­ing a strong core of play­ers ahead of the next T20 World Cup.

“The chal­lenge of play­ing against the World Cham­pi­ons at home will pro­vide valu­able prepa­ra­tion, al­low­ing us to con­tin­ue im­prov­ing and de­vel­op­ing both in­di­vid­u­al­ly and as a col­lec­tive unit,” Sam­my said.

John Camp­bell makes his re­turn to the ODI team af­ter suf­fer­ing a ham­string in­jury in the se­ries against New Zealand, while Ac­k­eem Au­guste has been ruled out of the tour as he con­tin­ues his re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion af­ter un­der­go­ing surgery in Au­gust.

He has been re­placed by Jew­el An­drew who will serve as a top and mid­dle or­der bat­ting op­tion.

Shim­ron Het­my­er, who fea­tured in the last two match­es of the New Zealand se­ries and has been in pro­lif­ic form in the CPL for the Ama­zon War­riors, has been per­mit­ted an ex­tend­ed re­cov­ery pe­ri­od and will miss the ODI se­ries, but will join the squad for the T20I se­ries.

Re­gard­less of the out­come of the ODI se­ries, the West In­dies will have to par­tic­i­pate in the ICC’s qual­i­fi­ca­tion tour­na­ment ear­ly next year to book their spot in the World Cup.

De­spite this, Sam­my re­it­er­at­ed the im­por­tance of the se­ries of match­es.

“Play­ing against the top team in the world presents us with a chance to fine tune and im­prove our per­for­mances as an ODI team which has seen qual­i­ty per­for­mances across the cy­cle.

“The se­ries al­so cre­ates a valu­able plat­form to as­sess play­ers who are step­ping in­to im­por­tant roles for this se­ries with a long-term tar­get of com­pet­ing in the World Cup in 2027,” Sam­my said.

The squad de­parts the Caribbean on Mon­day and will ar­rive in Trivan­drum on Sep­tem­ber 23. (CMC)