Gayle handed captaincy

Chris Gayle has been awarded the captaincy of the West Indies ODI team for their series in England and Ireland. The selectors have chosen a 14 man squad with a few changes from the group of players that performed poorly at the World Cup in the Caribbean earlier in the year. Corey Collymore and Jerome Taylor have both been dropped and Brian Lara is missing from the squad due to retirement.

Dwayne Smith and Lendl Simmons have come back into the squad and will meet up with the rest of the players after the fourth Test against England. Austin Richards has also received his first international call up, although with the 23 year old Antiguan having a poor limited overs record the selection is a puzzling one. The left hander has played only a handful of List A matches and has scored 402 runs at an average of just a touch over 20.

Daren Ganga, the stand in Test captain, and Sylvester Joseph will both depart after the fourth Test at Chester-Lee-Street with the two fast bowlers who have also been excluded. Shivnarine Chanderpaul will be on hand to lend some assistance to Gayle as the newly appointed vice-captain. The squad will play two Twenty20 games against England on consecutive nights and then face off in a three match ODI series before a short tournament in Ireland involving three Associate Nations.

West Indies squad: Chris Gayle (c), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (vc), Dinesh Ramdin (wk), Dwayne Bravo, Fidel Edwards, Runako Morton, Daren Powell, Ravi Rampaul, Austin Richards, Darren Sammy, Marlon Samuels, Lendl Simmons, Devon Smith, Dwayne Smith.