West Indies have named their squads for an upcoming white-ball tour of India, and the headline addition is 20-year-old opener Kamil Pooran, who earns his first senior call-up for the five-match T20I series after an impressive Caribbean Premier League campaign. Shai Hope will captain both the ODI and T20I squads on a tour that runs from September 27 to October 17, comprising three ODIs followed by five T20Is.
Pooran rewarded for a strong CPL season
Pooran’s inclusion follows a breakout campaign in the 2026 Caribbean Premier League, where he scored 273 runs in eight innings at a strike rate of 159.64 and an average of 39. Cricket West Indies described the call-up as part of a deliberate approach to identifying and developing emerging talent ahead of the 2028 T20 World Cup, signalling that the selectors see the young opener as part of the format’s medium-term future rather than a one-off reward for a hot streak.
Key names rested or returning
The squads also reflect a broader management of workload among senior players. Shimron Hetmyer has been rested for the three-match ODI series after being granted an extended recovery period following the CPL, though he returns for the T20I leg of the tour. Experienced all-rounder Jason Holder has been left out of the T20I squad, while Quentin Sampson and Keemo Paul have been recalled for the shorter format. John Campbell returns to the ODI squad having recovered from a hamstring injury, and Ackeem Auguste misses the entire tour as he continues rehabilitation following surgery in August.
The squads in full
The ODI squad reads: Shai Hope (captain), Jewel Andrew, John Campbell, Keacy Carty, Roston Chase, Matthew Forde, Justin Greaves, Amir Jangoo, Alzarri Joseph, Shamar Joseph, Vitel Lawes, Gudakesh Motie, Keemo Paul, Sherfane Rutherford and Jayden Seales. The T20I squad is Shai Hope (captain), Jewel Andrew, Roston Chase, Matthew Forde, Shimron Hetmyer, Akeal Hosein, Shamar Joseph, Gudakesh Motie, Keemo Paul, Kamil Pooran, Rovman Powell, Sherfane Rutherford, Quentin Sampson, Romario Shepherd and Shamar Springer.
Two views inside West Indies cricket
Supporters of the selection panel’s approach point to the success of past graduates of the CPL-to-international pipeline and argue that blooding Pooran now, in a tough away series against India, is exactly the kind of high-pressure test that accelerates development. Critics within the wider Caribbean cricket community counter that resting multiple senior figures like Hetmyer and Holder for parts of the tour risks fielding an inexperienced side against one of the strongest white-ball teams in the world, at a time when West Indies are still trying to rebuild consistency in bilateral series after a difficult run in recent global events.
A tough proving ground in India
Touring India in white-ball cricket remains one of the most demanding assignments in the sport, given the depth of India’s bowling attack and typically batting-friendly conditions that put a premium on containing scoring in the middle overs. The three ODIs will offer an early gauge of how West Indies’ top order, missing Hetmyer, copes without one of its most destructive middle-order players, while the five-match T20I series gives the selectors a wider window to assess Pooran and other fringe players such as Sampson against elite opposition.
Looking ahead to the tour
With the ODI leg opening the tour before the T20Is take the squad across several Indian venues, the series will double as both a competitive contest and an audition for players positioning themselves ahead of West Indies’ next multi-year cycle. How Pooran fares at the top of the order, and whether the rotation policy around Hetmyer and Holder pays off, are likely to shape selection conversations well beyond this tour, with the 2028 T20 World Cup already cited by the board as part of the thinking behind the squad’s composition.
West Indies’ white-ball program has been in a period of transition over the past few years, with selectors regularly rotating squads between franchise-honed young talent and a smaller core of established internationals such as Hope, Powell and Alzarri Joseph. The India tour is being treated internally as a checkpoint for that strategy: a chance to see whether players who have impressed primarily in domestic and franchise cricket, like Pooran and Vitel Lawes, can translate that form against a full-strength Indian attack on unfamiliar surfaces. Results across the eight white-ball fixtures are expected to feed directly into selection discussions for West Indies’ next global qualifying assignments, making this more than a routine bilateral series for a board still searching for consistency at the top level.
Indian team management, for its part, is expected to use the series to assess its own fringe players across both formats, meaning several places in both starting elevens could look markedly different by the series finale in Bengaluru than they did on the opening day in the ODIs.
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