Shimron Hetmyer has been dropped from the West Indies men’s T20 World Cup squad after he failed to board a “rescheduled” flight to Australia. The choice was made “unanimously,” according to CWI, by the selection panel, which also chose to nominate Shamarh Brooks to succeed Hetmyer.
After the CPL ended on Saturday, the rest of the West Indies team had divided into several groups and travelled to Australia. White-ball skipper Nicholas Pooran said, “To be honest, that’s not my focus at the moment. A decision has been made, there’s consequences for your action. At the moment just want to focus on why we’re here and how we’re going to achieve our goals.”
Hetmyer, the Guyana Amazon Warriors captain, originally planned to depart on October 1 but requested that his trip be postponed for personal reasons. Hetmyer informed Jimmy Adams, CWI’s director of cricket, that he would not be travelling after CWI had placed him on a Monday flight. “The decision by the CWI selection panel was made as Shimron Hetmyer missed his re-scheduled flight to Australia, which had been changed from Saturday 1 October at his request, due to family reasons,” CWI said in a media statement. “With flight availability a real challenge, a seat was found for him to leave Guyana today, Monday 3 October, meaning he would unfortunately miss the 1st T20 International (T20I) against Australia on Wednesday 5 October at the Metricon Stadium. This morning, Mr Hetmyer, informed the Director of Cricket that he would not be able to get to the airport in time for his flight this afternoon 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,” 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.”
