Sev­er­al young play­ers will look to step-up, when West In­dies-A face Zim­bab­we in an of­fi­cial four-day, first-class match, start­ing to­day at the Queen's Park Sta­di­um. This match is a boost for the young, promis­ing bunch of play­ers –un­der Travis Dowl­in–all look­ing to en­hance their rep­u­ta­tions, and put them­selves on the fringes of in­ter­na­tion­al se­lec­tion.

"I spoke to all the play­ers, and they are all speak­ing about op­por­tu­ni­ties," said West In­dies A-Team coach Hendy Springer. Dowl­in is the on­ly play­er to have ap­peared in Tests for the se­nior West In­dies side, and fast bowler Nelon Pas­cal is the on­ly oth­er play­er with match­es for the se­nior team un­der his belt hav­ing ap­peared in a few One-day In­ter­na­tion­als last year against Bangladesh.

All of the oth­er play­ers are un­capped, in­clud­ing three mem­bers of the West In­dies Un­der-19 side that reached the semi­fi­nals of this year's Youth World Cup in New Zealand. They are open­er Kraigg Brath­waite, wick­et­keep­er/bats­man Shane Dowrich, and all-rounder Ja­son Hold­er. Sev­er­al play­ers that ad­ver­tised their abil­i­ty in this year's re­gion­al first-class cham­pi­onship al­so gained se­lec­tion with spin bowl­ing all-rounder Im­ran Khan, and open­er Justin Guillen, his com­pa­tri­ot, head­ing the list. CMC

Squads

WEST IN­DIES-A (from): Travis Dowl­in (cap­tain), Bran­don Bess, Kraigg Brath­waite, Shane Dowrich, Kirk Ed­wards, As­sad Fu­dadin, Shan­non Gabriel, Justin Guillen, Ja­son Haynes, Ja­son Hold­er, Im­ran Khan, Nelon Pas­cal, Shane Shilling­ford

ZIM­BAB­WE (from): Pros­per Ut­seya (cap­tain), Andy Blig­naut, Chamu Chib­hab­ha, El­ton Chigum­bu­ra, Charles Coven­try, Chris Ervine, Graeme Cre­mer, Greg Lamb, Timycen Maru­ma, Hamil­ton Masakadza, Christo­pher Mpo­fu, Ray Price, Vusimuzi Siban­da, Taten­da Taibu, Bren­dan Tay­lor