ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – West In­dies will be with­out their ICC Men’s Twen­ty20 World Cup cap­tain Rov­man Pow­ell and deputy Alzarri Joseph when they play against South Africa in three Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­als this com­ing week in Ja­maica.

In­stead, Bran­don King has been named in­ter­im cap­tain and Ros­ton Chase will be his deputy for the match­es against the South Africans this com­ing Thurs­day, Sat­ur­day, and Sun­day to her­ald the re­turn of in­ter­na­tion­als to Sabi­na Park in the Ja­maica cap­i­tal of Kingston.

The match­es will be the fi­nal, prop­er dress re­hearsal for West In­dies be­fore they start their quest to win a third T20I World Cup when the tour­na­ment starts on June 1 in the Caribbean and the Unit­ed States, and it is hard­ly ide­al for Pow­ell and Joseph to miss the match­es.

But they be­came un­avail­able for se­lec­tion when their re­spec­tive sides reached the knock­out stages of the In­di­an Pre­mier League tak­ing place this week, and a chance to play in the fi­nal of the high­ly lu­cra­tive T20 tour­na­ment.

Pow­ell and left-han­der Shim­ron Het­my­er, an­oth­er West In­dies World Cup se­lectee, are part of the Ra­jasthan Roy­als that will play against Roy­al Chal­lengers Ban­ga­lore – whose ros­ter in­cludes Joseph – in the elim­i­na­tion fi­nal of the IPL on Wednes­day at the Naren­dra Mo­di Sta­di­um in Ahmed­abad.

Two oth­er mem­bers of the West In­dies World Cup squad – all-rounders An­dre Rus­sell and Sher­fane Ruther­ford – are part of the Kolkata Knight Rid­ers that will play against Sun­ris­ers Hy­der­abad in the qual­i­fi­ca­tion fi­nal of the IPL on Tues­day at the same venue.

CWI in­di­cat­ed in a news re­lease that Joseph and Ruther­ford will be added to the squad if their re­spec­tive fran­chis­es fail to reach the fi­nal of the IPL, and World Cup se­lectees Shai Hope and Nicholas Pooran are both be­ing rest­ed for the se­ries and will join the squad on May 27 in Trinidad, where the squad will of­fi­cial­ly be in World Cup mode.

As fate has it, the Pro­teas too, will be miss­ing crit­i­cal play­ers, in­clud­ing their World Cup cap­tain Aidan Markram, bean­pole left-arm pac­er Mar­co Jansen, and wick­et­keep­er-bats­man Hein­rich Klaasen, all mem­bers of the Sun­ris­ers Hy­der­abad team in the IPL.

Play­ers from West In­dies and South Africa are among a small group of World Cup-bound, for­eign in­ter­na­tion­als tak­ing part in the knock­out stages of the IPL, in­clud­ing the Aus­tralia trio of fast bowlers Pat Cum­mins and Mitchell Starc, as well as left-hand­ed bats­man Travis Head, and Eng­land open­er Phil Salt, al­though sev­er­al oth­ers from the com­pet­ing teams made an ear­ly ex­it.

West In­dies lead se­lec­tor Desmond Haynes said the match­es against South Africa will give the play­ers se­lect­ed a last chance to get in the right frame of mind for the World Cup.

“These are among the last com­pet­i­tive T20 In­ter­na­tion­al match­es be­fore the start of the World Cup,” he said. “Play­ers have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to fine-tune their skills and en­sure they are as pre­pared as they can be for the World Cup, whether they are in the fi­nal squad or re­serve pool.”

Head coach Daren Sam­my added West In­dies will try to make the best of the sit­u­a­tion dur­ing the match­es against the South Africans.

“We have not played to­geth­er as a team since the Aus­tralia se­ries, but we just com­plet­ed a very high-in­ten­si­ty train­ing camp in An­tigua,” he said. “Now we have the chance to in­te­grate some of our play­ers re­turn­ing from the IPL and build some mo­men­tum as a group go­ing in­to the World Cup.”

King has T20 lead­er­ship cre­den­tials, hav­ing led the now-de­funct Ja­maica Tallawahs dur­ing the Caribbean Pre­mier League last sea­son, and this will be an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­ver­tise his cap­tain­cy po­ten­tial.

He was set to lead West In­dies “A” on their re­cent T20 Tour of Nepal be­fore he was with­drawn due to a knee in­jury, and he will be keen to an­swer any ques­tions about his fit­ness go­ing in­to the World Cup be­cause of his im­por­tance to bat­ting.

Chase in­stead led West In­dies “A” to a land­mark se­ries vic­to­ry against the World Cup-bound Nepalese se­nior na­tion­al team, and he too, will look to set­tle ar­gu­ments about his place in the squad for the com­ing glob­al show­piece.

The three match­es against the Pro­teas will give play­ers left out of the World Cup squad, name­ly left-arm spin bowl­ing all-rounder Fabi­an Allen, left-hand­ed bats­man Al­ick Athanaze, pac­er Matthew Forde, am­bidex­trous all-rounder Kyle May­ers, left-arm pac­er Obed Mc­Coy, and leg-spin­ner Hay­den Walsh Jr – a fi­nal chance to im­press Haynes and Sam­my.

All teams are al­lowed un­til May 25 to make changes to their pro­vi­sion­al World Cup squads that were pre­vi­ous­ly named, af­ter which any al­ter­ation will re­quire ap­proval from the event’s tech­ni­cal com­mit­tee, so there is still time for play­ers omit­ted to shine.

Squad

Bran­don King (cap­tain), Ros­ton Chase (vice-cap­tain), Fabi­an Allen, Al­ick Athanaze, John­son Charles, An­dre Fletch­er, Math­ew Forde, Ja­son Hold­er, Akeal Ho­sein, Shamar Joseph, Kyle May­ers, Obed Mc­Coy, Gu­dakesh Motie, Ro­mario Shep­herd, Hay­den Walsh Jr.

(CMC)