ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) to­day named the vice-cap­tains for the up­com­ing se­ries in New Zealand. Nicholas Pooran will be vice-cap­tain for the three T20 In­ter­na­tion­als (T20Is), while Ros­ton Chase has been named vice-cap­tain for the two In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil's World Test Cham­pi­onship match­es.

Bat­ting all-rounder Ros­ton Chase, 28, has so far played 35 Test match­es, scor­ing five cen­turies and col­lect­ing three five-wick­et hauls with his off-spin bowl­ing. Wick­et-keep­er/bats­man Pooran, 25, is among the lead­ing white-ball play­ers with two half-cen­turies in 19 T20I in­nings and al­so av­er­ag­ing close to 50 in One Day In­ter­na­tion­als.

Roger Harp­er, CWI’s Lead Se­lec­tor said: “Ros­ton Chase has been ap­point­ed vice-cap­tain of the West In­dies Test Team for this tour of New Zealand. He is an ex­pe­ri­enced play­er who is tac­ti­cal­ly aware and very pur­pose­ful in his ap­proach to the game. He is read­i­ly will­ing to of­fer ad­vice and dis­cuss ideas with his fel­low play­ers and the coach­es and I think will of­fer good lead­er­ship sup­port to cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er both on and off the field. Nicholas Pooran con­tin­ues in the role of vice-cap­tain of the T20I team for the tour of New Zealand. He was first named vice-cap­tain for this for­mat for the se­ries against Afghanistan in 2019.”

Chase had re­placed com­pa­tri­ot and long-serv­ing open­ing bats­man Kraigg Brath­waite in the po­si­tion for the Test se­ries against the Black Caps.

“When I got the call from head coach Phil Sim­mons, he told me that he had a chat with the se­lec­tors and the board, and they agreed that I was the play­er for the vice-cap­tain­cy role for the Tour. At first, I was a bit shocked be­cause I was nev­er in that vice-cap­tain­cy ca­pac­i­ty. Not even in a Bar­ba­dos team, I was nev­er a vice-cap­tain, and I thought there were play­ers in the team that have held those po­si­tions. I cap­tained West In­dies ‘A’ in a One-day se­ries pre­vi­ous­ly, so I guess they took it from there to nom­i­nate me for the po­si­tion.”

The Caribbean side has not won a Test se­ries, let alone a Test, in New Zealand, since Court­ney Walsh’s side brushed aside Ken Ruther­ford’s men 25 years ago at the Basin Re­serve.

“I am hap­py about get­ting the po­si­tion,” Chase said. “It is a re­al ho­n­our to be in a po­si­tion like this, where there have been many greats that have held this po­si­tion be­fore. It is for me to car­ry on that lega­cy, what the leg­ends have done be­fore and see if I can achieve what they have done or even greater heights. “Ja­son and I have a good re­la­tion­ship, as well as coach Phil, so I do not think it will be a prob­lem for me to come in and be ac­cept­ed in the lead­er­ship group by those two. It is just for me to sup­port Ja­son and work with the best strate­gies go­ing for­ward.”

Ros­ton Chase said: “I have been mak­ing strides in Test crick­et since my de­but back in 2016 and I see this new role as vice-cap­tain as an ho­n­our. It is just for me to try and car­ry on and try to achieve great things for West In­dies. It is all about of­fer­ing sup­port to the cap­tain, coach and oth­er play­ers as we try to plan strat­e­gy and put more wins on the board.”

Pooran said: “I see this as an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn and grow in the game. I was vice-cap­tain for the tour of Sri Lan­ka ear­li­er this year, so this is a con­tin­u­a­tion of that work. It’s al­ways good to share your knowl­edge as we look to con­tin­ue the win­ning men­tal­i­ty. We were suc­cess­ful in Sri Lan­ka and this is a se­ries we be­lieve we can get more suc­cess against New Zealand.”

FULL SQUADS

T20I Squad: Kieron Pol­lard (cap­tain), Nicholas Pooran (vice-cap­tain), Fabi­an Allen, Shel­don Cot­trell, An­dre Fletch­er, Shim­ron Het­my­er, Bran­don King, Kyle May­ers, Rov­man Pow­ell, Keemo Paul, Ro­mario Shep­herd, Os­hane Thomas, Hay­den Walsh Jr, Kesrick Williams

Test Squad: Ja­son Hold­er (cap­tain), Ros­ton Chase (vice-cap­tain), Jer­maine Black­wood, Kraigg Brath­waite, Dar­ren Bra­vo, Shamarh Brooks, John Camp­bell, Rah­keem Corn­wall, Shane Dowrich, Shan­non Gabriel, Shim­ron Het­my­er, Chemar Hold­er, Alzarri Joseph, Keemo Paul, Ke­mar Roach

Test Re­serves: Nkrumah Bon­ner, Joshua DaSil­va, Pre­ston Mc­Sween, Shayne Mose­ley, Ray­mon Reifer, Jay­den Seales

Match Sched­ule:

No­vem­ber 27: 1st T20I at Eden Park, Auck­land

No­vem­ber 29: 2nd T20I at Bay Oval, Mount Maun­ganui

No­vem­ber 30: 3rd T20I at Bay Oval, Mount Maun­ganui

De­cem­ber 3-7: 1st Test at Sed­don Park, Hamil­ton

De­cem­ber 11-15: 2nd Test at Basin Re­serve, Welling­ton