ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Open­er Mikyle Louis could be­come the first play­er from St Kitts to play Tests af­ter he was named in the West In­dies 15-mem­ber squad for their Tour of Eng­land next month.

The 23-year-old is the on­ly com­plete new­com­er in the squad that will face the Eng­lish in three Tests for the Vi­vian Richards-Ian Both­am Tro­phy, and he has more or less tak­en the place of Guyanese left-hand­ed open­er Tage­nar­ine Chan­der­paul, son of for­mer Guyana cap­tain and West In­dies bats­man Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul.

Louis was the lead­ing run scor­er in the West In­dies Cham­pi­onship this year with 682 runs from 14 in­nings in sev­en match­es at an av­er­age of 48.71, and he could form a new open­ing part­ner­ship with Test cap­tain Kraigg Brath­waite, whose un­capped Bar­ba­dos Pride open­ing part­ner, Zachary Mc­Cask­ie is al­so in the side.

“The squad has been shaped with both ex­pe­ri­ence and emerg­ing tal­ent, en­sur­ing a strong bal­ance as we face the chal­lenge of play­ing in Eng­lish con­di­tions,” West In­dies lead se­lec­tor, Desmond Haynes said.

“Over the past year, our red-ball pro­gramme has con­tin­ued to de­vel­op. Fol­low­ing our vic­to­ry in the last Test in Jan­u­ary in Aus­tralia, it is ev­i­dent that we are see­ing the fruits of that in­vest­ment.

“Each play­er se­lect­ed has earned their place through con­sis­tent per­for­mances and hard work. We are con­fi­dent that this blend of sea­soned play­ers and emerg­ing faces will per­form ad­mirably against Eng­land.”

The squad has been boost­ed with the re­turn of all-rounder Ja­son Hold­er and pac­er Jay­den Seales af­ter they missed the pre­vi­ous Test se­ries against hosts and world cham­pi­ons, Aus­tralia in Jan­u­ary this year when West In­dies won a Test for the first time Down Un­der in 27 years.

Hold­er chose to play for Dubai Cap­i­tals in the ILT20 in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, but it was al­ways go­ing to be dif­fi­cult to ig­nore him once he was avail­able, and his ap­pear­ances for Pride and Worces­ter­shire in the Eng­lish Coun­ty Cham­pi­onship helped his cause.

He was ruled out of the ICC Men’s Twen­ty20 World Cup tak­ing place right now in the Caribbean and the Unit­ed States with an in­jury that Crick­et West In­dies failed to spec­i­fy at the time, but re­ports in his na­tive Bar­ba­dos sug­gest­ed that it was a shoul­der – and it ap­pears that he will be fit enough to make the trip.

Seales al­so missed the Tour of Aus­tralia with a shoul­der in­jury, but he ap­pears to have ful­ly re­cov­ered and he has been play­ing for lead­ers Sus­sex in Di­vi­sion 2 of the Eng­lish Coun­ty Cham­pi­onship, where he has been one of the most suc­cess­ful bowlers tak­ing a joint-high 24 wick­ets at 24.25 apiece.

Hold­er and Seales will help form a for­mi­da­ble pace at­tack with vice-cap­tain Alzarri Joseph, un­re­lat­ed name­sake Shamar Joseph, and long-stand­ing Ke­mar Roach, who has al­so been rack­ing up the miles in his leg in Eng­land play­ing for de­fend­ing Di­vi­sion 1 coun­ty cham­pi­ons, Sur­rey.

Apart from the younger Chan­der­paul, two oth­ers who made the trip to Aus­tralia – Bar­ba­di­ans Justin Greaves and Akeem Jor­dan – have al­so missed out on the trip to Eng­land – but CWI an­nounced that West In­dies Un­der-19 pac­er Isai Thorne, who took 19 wick­ets in the West In­dies Cham­pi­onship, will ac­com­pa­ny the squad to Eng­land as a de­vel­op­ment play­er.

West In­dies will play a three-day, warm-up match against a Coun­ty Se­lect XI from Ju­ly 3 at Beck­en­ham be­fore the first Test against Ben Stokes and com­pa­ny starts on Ju­ly 10 at the home of the sport, Lord’s that will be the farewell Test for Eng­land pac­er James An­der­son.

The sec­ond Test be­gins on June 18 at Trent Bridge in Not­ting­ham, and the third Test on June 26 at Edg­bas­ton in Birm­ing­ham.

West In­dies are the cur­rent hold­ers of the Richards-Both­am Tro­phy fol­low­ing a 1-0 home Test se­ries win in March 2022.

Squad:

Kraigg Brath­waite (cap­tain), Alzarri Joseph (vice-cap­tain), Al­ick Athanaze, Joshua Da Sil­va, Ja­son Hold­er, Kavem Hodge, Tevin Im­lach, Shamar Joseph, Mikyle Louis, Zachary Mc­Cask­ie, Kirk McKen­zie, Gu­dakesh Motie, Ke­mar Roach, Jay­den Seales, Kevin Sin­clair.

CMC