00:00With the 2026 T20 World Cup starting early next month, the West Indies finally name their squad for the tournament.
00:07The Windies are grouped alongside England, Italy, Nepal and Scotland who have replaced Bangladesh.
00:14The side is captained by Shea Hope and includes hard-hitting batter Quinton Sampson.
00:18The squad is as follows.
00:20Shea Hope the captain, Johnson Charles, Roston Chase, Matthew Ford, Shimron Heckmeyer, Jason Holder,
00:26Akeel Hossein, Shammar Joseph, Brandon King, Gautakesh Moti, Ravman Powell, Shilfane Rutherford, Quinton Sampson, Jaden Seals and Romario Shepard.
00:37Sampson had some good performances for Guyana Amazon Warriors in the CPL.
00:42Besides that, Hope was satisfied with his display in maroon colours recently.
00:46Yeah, Sampson, he's shown that he's had a lot of promise from the first few games that he's played in CPL.
00:53He's certainly one of the cleaner ball strikers that I've seen in a long time, natural ball strikers.
00:59He's also shown the ability to adapt to certain conditions, especially when there's spin involved.
01:04So he's one of those ones that I think can definitely play a role in these sort of conditions that we're going to.
01:11We saw in his debut game against Afghanistan, he negated.
01:16He likes Arashid Khan and some of the experienced spinners across world cricket.
01:19Missing from the side is Alzari Joseph because of injury, and Hope says it's a blow to the team that the Pacer is out.
01:26We know how much of an impactful player he is in all three formats.
01:30He's one of our main fast bowlers in Western East cricket currently.
01:35It's a big miss, you know, we've missed him for quite some time now.
01:39Having said that, I'm sure the depth that we're trying to continue growing is doing a pretty good job.
01:45We've also got some, as you said, the firepower of Shamar Joseph with his pace as well.
01:51So it's good to see him back.
01:53The Windies are far from favourites at the World Cup, but coach Darren Sami is not too concerned about that
01:58and believes the team is capable of winning a third title.
02:01And I'm excited to see what my men have in store, you know, for the public.
02:08It feels like the same, you know, because we're going to India and I'm pretty sure nobody gives us a chance.
02:14And it was the same in 2016.
02:16So we have our quiet confidence in the dressing room and just watching the guys, you know, train over the last two days.
02:27You know, there's an energy that is telling me something special is about to happen.
02:35The Windies play their opener on February 7th against Scotland at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
02:40Vinod Nawani, Teeves Export.
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