Vin­ode Mam­chan

All rounder Dwayne Bra­vo is among five T&T play­ers who have been called up in a squad of 20 play­ers to pre­pare for the up­com­ing West In­dies ver­sus New Zealand Test se­ries.Bra­vo will be joined by new­ly-elect­ed West In­dies cap­tain De­nesh Ramdin, his half-broth­er Dar­ren, fast bowler Shan­non Gabriel and mys­tery spin­ner Sunil Nar­ine.The squad of 20 was cho­sen by the re­gion­al se­lec­tion pan­el head­ed by Guyanese Clyde Butts and will move to Bar­ba­dos on June 1 for a camp, then on to Ja­maica for the open­ing match against the Ki­wis.

The last time Bra­vo walked on to the field in white for the West In­dies was on De­cem­ber 5, 2010. Since then he has been in­volved in 50 overs crick­et in which he is cap­tain of the team, and T20 crick­et.With Dar­ren Sam­my's de­par­ture from Test crick­et, the way was opened for Bra­vo to make a re­turn as the pre­ferred fast bowl­ing all rounder. Bra­vo's Test record re­veals that in 40 match­es, he has scored 2,200 runs at an av­er­age of 31.42. He has a Test best of 113 and has scored three cen­turies and 13 50s. In the bowl­ing de­part­ment he has tak­en 86 wick­ets at 39.89 with a best haul of 6/55.

Re­cent­ly Bra­vo made his frus­tra­tions pub­lic in terms of not play­ing Test match­es."To be hon­est I was very dis­ap­point­ed that I was not able to make the Test squad with­in that time since 2010. In the lit­tle time I've played Test crick­et, I think I've done good enough to still at least be part of West In­dies at­tack."From the se­lec­tors down to the coach as well, every day I see them, I abuse them," Bra­vo joked. "I keep ask­ing what it is I have to do again to be se­lect­ed. Ob­vi­ous­ly, they can't re­al­ly give a prop­er an­swer so it al­ways fin­ish­es off with a small laugh. Noth­ing re­al­ly se­ri­ous comes out of it."

Now it is all in his hands as he bids to get in­to the fi­nal squad that will make the trip from Bar­ba­dos to Ja­maica. An­oth­er play­er mak­ing a come­back is fast bowler Shan­non Gabriel. The burly pac­er went off the boil last year but this sea­son he re­turned some cred­i­ble per­for­mances for T&T in the Re­gion­al four-day tour­na­ment. Gabreil took 22 wick­ets at 21.09 in sev­en match­es with a best of 6/84.Bats­man Dar­ren Bra­vo, who has strug­gled to find his best form, since spank­ing a dou­ble cen­tu­ry against the New Zealan­ders in New Zealand ear­li­er this year, will be look­ing to work hard at his game dur­ing the camp to get back in­to the fi­nal team.

Nar­ine is ex­pect­ed to part­ner Shane Shilling­ford in the spin at­tack and they will def­i­nite­ly give the home team the edge play­ing on spin friend­ly tracks in the Caribbean.The 20 play­ers called to pre­pare are:De­nesh Ramdin (cap­tain), Chris Gayle, Kraigg Brath­waite, Keiran Pow­ell, Dar­ren Bra­vo, Dwayne Bra­vo, Mar­lon Samuels, Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul, Kirk Ed­wards, Jer­maine Black­wood, Sunil Nar­ine, Shan­non Gabriel, Jerome Tay­lor, Sulie­man Benn, Shane Shilling­ford, Ken­roy Pe­ters, Shane Dowrich, Ash­ley Nurse, Ja­son Hold­er and Ke­mar Roach.