Port of Spain, 10 Aug: \u201cI don\u2019t think that I should be begging people to play for the West Indies,\u201d said the team\u2019s dejected chief coach Phil Simmons.
\nThe former opener expressed his disappointment even as the board struggles to home in on their best squad for the upcoming T20 World Cup, with most cricketers either playing franchise league elsewhere or out injured.
\n\u201cIt hurts. There\u2019s no other way to put it. But what can you do? I don\u2019t think that I should be begging people to play for their countries. I think if you want to represent West Indies, you will make yourself available,\u201d Simmons said.
\n\u201cLife has changed, in that people have the opportunities to go different places, and if they choose that over West Indies, that\u2019s just how it is,\u201d he added. The list of absentees is long.
\nAndre Russell hasn\u2019t made himself available for selection as the star all-rounder \u2014 along with Sunil Narine \u2014 is currently playing the Hundred. Evin Lewis and Oshane Thomas have not appeared for their fitness tests, while Sheldon Cottrell, Fabian Allen, and Roston Chase are all out with injuries.
\nWhile the 1-4 drubbing to India recently didn\u2019t help, the team gets one last chance to try the remaining players in the international arena before the T20 showpiece in the three-match series against New Zealand, starting later today.
\n\u201cFrom what I have gathered, I think he is unavailable because he hasn\u2019t made himself available,\u201d chief selector Desmond Haynes said of Russell.\u201dI will love everyone to play for West Indies. I would love to make sure that all the guys make themselves available to play,\u201d Haynes added.
\n\u201cBut you must realize that the guys have options now, and if guys are choosing other franchises in front of West Indies, then we have to pick from who is available to us.\u201d The T20 World Cup will be played in Australia in October-November (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Port of Spain, 10 Aug: \u201cI don\u2019t think that I should be begging people to play for the West Indies,\u201d said the team\u2019s dejected chief coach Phil Simmons. The former opener expressed his disappointment even as the board struggles to home in on their best squad for the upcoming T20 World Cup, with most cricketers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-197738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}