BRIDGETOWN–One of the West In­dies' newest bat­ting re­cruits Kirk Ed­wards is in­tent on ce­ment­ing his place in the re­gion­al side, on the up­com­ing One-Day In­ter­na­tion­al tour of Sri Lan­ka. "You want to get in and try to stay in. That's your aim," said the 26-year-old right-han­der, the on­ly new face in a 15-man squad for the se­ries of five ODIs and one Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­al. "When you play for a crick­et team, you want to be a 'set' play­er in the team and a play­er who is known for do­ing well and win­ning games for the team. Stay­ing in is def­i­nite­ly the first ob­jec­tive." Ed­wards' call-up was not sur­pris­ing, es­pe­cial­ly fol­low­ing con­sis­tent per­for­mances for West In­dies A ear­li­er this year against Zim­bab­we and Pak­istan A in the Caribbean and away to Bangladesh and Eng­land.

He is one of four play­ers com­ing in­to the Windies ODI squad, with all­rounder Kieron Pol­lard, left-arm spin­ner Niki­ta Miller, and fast bowler Ravi Ram­paul al­so be­ing called up for the De­cem­ber 9-21 se­ries. "I was cool about it (se­lec­tion). I was ex­pect­ing it soon­er or lat­er. It means a lot. It was a dream from a child. It is a great feel­ing," he told the Dai­ly Na­tion news­pa­per here. "I would at­tribute my se­lec­tion to do­ing well for the 'A' team and hav­ing a de­cent one-day tour­na­ment in Ja­maica. "I put it down to my will and de­ter­mi­na­tion and al­so do­ing well in Bar­ba­dos and not be­ing recog­nised. I de­cid­ed that I had to be more out­stand­ing. Those things dri­ve me. I re­alised that I had to step it up." (CMC)