ROSEAU–Some may quib­ble about its ad­e­qua­cy, but Shane Shilling­ford felt the WICB Re­gion­al One-day com­pe­ti­tion of­fered him valu­able match prac­tice ahead of the West In­dies' tour of Sri Lan­ka next month. The West In­dies off-spin­ner has been in­clud­ed in the West In­dies side that will vis­it the south Asian na­tion, where they will play three Tests, five One-day In­ter­na­tion­als, and one Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­al. "When I came back home af­ter the South Africa [home] se­ries, what I did ba­si­cal­ly was en­gage in a lot of net ses­sions," he said.

"I re­al­ly need­ed some time on the field, and that tour­na­ment pro­vid­ed just that for me. It did me re­al­ly good, and I must say that I en­joyed it a lot." He said: "This will be my first tour with the West In­dies team. I how­ev­er, have had ex­po­sure to sim­i­lar cli­mate and con­di­tions when I toured Bangladesh with the A-Team, so I should be able to ad­just nice­ly." The 27-year-old Shilling­ford made his in­ter­na­tion­al de­but for West In­dies against South Africa ear­li­er this year. He took nine wick­ets in three Tests, and gen­er­al­ly made life dif­fi­cult for the Pro­teas' bat­ting. (CMC)