West Indies dump Hetmyer for T20 World Cup

BARBADOS (AFP): West Indies dropped Shimron Hetmyer from the upcoming T20 World Cup in Australia after the batter missed a rescheduled flight, Cricket West Indies announced on Monday.

The 25-year-old from Guyana was replaced on the roster by Shamarh Brooks in a decision by the Cricket West Indies selection panel after Hetmyer missed his flight to Australia, which had been moved due to family reasons.

After a seat was found on a Monday flight to New York, Hetmyer told CWI on Monday morning that he would be unable to get to the Guyana airport in time to make his flight to New York.

“This afternoon we informed the CWI board of directors that the selection panel had unanimously decided to replace Shimron Hetmyer with Shamarh Brooks in our T20 World Cup squad,” CWI director of cricket Jimmy Adams said.

“Whilst we changed Shimron’s flight from Saturday to Monday due to family reasons, it was made clear to him that if there were any further delays and issues with his travel to Australia then we would have no choice but to replace him in the squad, as we are not prepared to compromise the team’s ability to prepare for this extremely important global event.”

Brooks will fly out later this week and miss T20 International matches against Australia on Wednesday at Gold Coast and Friday at Brisbane, instead joining the squad at Melbourne.

“Shamarh has been a part of our recent T20 International squads and delivered strong performances in the latter stages of the recently concluded CPL (Caribbean Premier League),” Adams said.

The West Indies is in Group B of the T20 World Cup alongside Scotland, Ireland and Zimbabwe with the top two from the group stage advancing to the Super 12s.

West Indies open October 17 against Scotland.