ST JOHN'S, An­tigua–West In­dies cap­tain Dar­ren Sam­my is back­ing his team to keep their T20 Num­ber One rank­ing and al­so win this year's In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil's World T20 Tour­na­ment.The 32-year-old was on Fri­day named as West In­dies cap­tain for the tour­na­ment to be played in In­dia from March 8 to April 3.

Sam­my has made 60 ap­pear­ances in T20 In­ter­na­tion­als for the re­gion­al side. He pre­vi­ous­ly led the West In­dies in Tests and One-Day In­ter­na­tion­als, in­clud­ing the 2011 ICC Crick­et World Cup, which was played in Asia.

This is the third time he will cap­tain the team to the ICC World T20 Tour­na­ment. He was at the helm when the Windies beat Sri Lan­ka at the R Pre­madasa Sta­di­um to win the Cham­pi­onship in 2012 and re­turned as skip­per in 2014, when they reached the se­mi-fi­nals in Bangladesh.

Speak­ing ahead of the tour­na­ment Sam­my not­ed: "When­ev­er I'm called on to rep­re­sent the West In­dies it's a great feel­ing...West In­dies crick­et is my pas­sion. We are ranked at Num­ber One and we want to stay there. We're ready to win it again for the peo­ple of the Caribbean. We've tast­ed vic­to­ry and it was a won­der­ful feel­ing.We want to taste it again and we know the peo­ple of the re­gion want that was well."

Sam­my added: "The up­com­ing ICC World T20 cham­pi­onship will be a 'mas­sive' event, and could be one of the biggest crick­et tour­na­ments we will ever see.All the world's best play­ers in this for­mat will be par­tic­i­pat­ing and this promis­es to be some­thing spe­cial. With the match­es be­ing played in In­dia, that adds to the ap­peal.

West In­dies will be bring­ing the 'A' game to the par­ty. It will be hard crick­et and we will be com­ing hard."The West In­dies are due to ar­rive in Kolkata on March 7 ahead of the tour­na­ment.They will have of­fi­cial warm-up match­es against In­dia on Thurs­day, March 10, and against Aus­tralia on Sun­day, March 13.

West In­dies have been drawn in Group 1 of the Su­per 10 stage where they will play along­side Eng­land, South Africa, Sri Lan­ka, and one of the qual­i­fiers from the first round.

FULL SQUAD

Dar­ren Sam­my (Cap­tain), Samuel Badree, Sulie­man Benn, Dar­ren Bra­vo, Dwayne Bra­vo, An­dre Fletch­er, Chris Gayle, Ja­son Hold­er, Sunil Nar­ine, Kieron Pol­lard, De­nesh Ramdin, An­dre Rus­sell, Mar­lon Samuels, Lendl Sim­mons and Jerome Tay­lor

SCHED­ULE

Warm-up match­es

Thurs­day, March 10: vs In­dia � Eden Gar­den, Kolkata

Sun­day, March 13: vs Aus­tralia � Eden Gar­den, Kolkata

Su­per 10 Group 1 match­es

Wednes­day, March 16: vs Eng­land � Wankhede Sta­di­um, Mum­bai

Sun­day, March 20: vs Sri Lan­ka � M Chin­naswamy Sta­di­um, Ban­ga­lore

Fri­day, March 25: vs South Africa � Vi­darb­ha Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion Sta­di­um, Nag­pur

Sun­day, March 27: vs Qual­i­fi­er 1B � Vi­darb­ha Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion Sta­di­um, Nag­pur.