DOGGED GUYANESE left-hander Assad Fudadin will replace the unavailable Darren Bravo in the West Indies’ Test squad for the tour to South Africa in December and January.
But the West Indies selectors, in a Press release yesterday, requested that recuperating fast bowler Sheldon Cottrell represent Jamaica in the third round of the Professional Cricket League (PCL) so that they could “have an opportunity to evaluate his match readiness” for the three-match series starting on December 17.
Fudadin, 29, played three Tests against New Zealand and England in 2012, scoring 122 runs with one half-century. Apart from a century for West Indies A against Sri Lanka A in October, he only has three half-centuries in his last 18 first-class innings with 12 scores under 25 runs.
Fudadin, who has four centuries and averages a modest 33.12 in 74 first-class matches, gets the nod over fellow left-handers Narsingh Deonarine and Jonathan Carter as well as Trindadian stroke-maker Lendl Simmons.
Meanwhile, Cottrell, who had returned from the A tour of Sri Lanka with a hamstring injury, won’t leave for South Africa with the rest of the squad on November 30.
He did not play in Jamaica’s first game against the Windward Islands and is also not in the squad for the second series PCL match against Barbados, which was due to start yesterday.
Four others
Four other members of the Test squad, fast bowler Jerome Taylor, left-arm spinner Sulieman Benn, batsman Marlon Samuels and reserve wicket-keeper Chadwick Walton all missed the opening series.
Whereas Benn and Taylor will now play for Barbados and Jamaica respectively in the match at the Windward Club, neither Samuels nor Walton, who played for Sagicor UWI in a local quarter-final match against ESAF Pickwick last Sunday, has been selected for Jamaica.
Test squad
Denesh Ramdin (captain), Sulieman Benn, Jermaine Blackwood, Kraigg Brathwaite, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Sheldon Cottrell, Assad Fudadin, Shannon Gabriel, Chris Gayle, Jason Holder, Leon Johnson, Kemar Roach, Marlon Samuels, Jerome Taylor, Chadwick Walton.
