IAN WA­SON

Out-of-favour West In­dies fast-bowler Os­hane Thomas is de­ter­mined to get back on the West In­dies team. Not just the white-ball set-up that he has been part of be­tween 2018 and 2021, but the Test team.

The 26-year-old, who has tak­en 27 wick­ets from 20 One Day In­ter­na­tion­als (ODIs) is cur­rent­ly in Glouces­ter­shire where he is play­ing with lo­cal club Fro­ces­ter. Thomas told Guardian Sports he is work­ing hard and putting in the work to re­turn to the Caribbean team. "I'm in a pro­gramme that I got from the Crick­et West In­dies. It's been go­ing good," he said.

Thomas ex­plained what the pro­gramme and reg­i­men in­clude. "I go to the gym from Mon­day to Fri­day. I have run­ning on Wednes­day and Thurs­day dur­ing the week and two match­es on the week­end. I'm pret­ty busy to be hon­est."

With all the hard work and ef­fort be­ing put out, Thomas, who made his first pro­fes­sion­al ap­pear­ance for the Ja­maica Tallawahs in 2016, says he is com­mit­ted to play­ing the longer ver­sion of the game af­ter play­ing more white ball crick­et. "Def­i­nite­ly I want to play four-day crick­et. I'd def­i­nite­ly love to play Test crick­et in the fu­ture. So, I am go­ing to play four-day, Su­per50 and I am go­ing to play the full sea­son. I will try to play fran­chise crick­et but once the four-day comes around, I will be ful­ly com­mit­ted to play."

When Thomas was a fix­ture on the West In­dies team, Alzarri Joseph did not yet es­tab­lish him­self firm­ly in the team. Since then, the quick An­tiguan has emerged as the pre­mier fast-bowler in the Caribbean. Thomas is look­ing for­ward to bowl­ing with his fel­low fast-bowler, some­thing he has nev­er done be­fore. "I had a meet­ing with the se­lec­tor a few weeks ago. That is one of the things that we talked about. Def­i­nite­ly putting in the work. I would love to go back (on the West In­dies team) and be bowl­ing from one end and Alzarri bowl­ing from the oth­er end. We are the fastest bowlers in the Caribbean, so I think it will be a good com­bi­na­tion and a good thing for the West In­dies."

Thomas has played 60 T20 match­es and has tak­en 74 wick­ets at an av­er­age of 23.79. He is look­ing for­ward to adding to those fig­ures in the up­com­ing Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) sea­son with his new fran­chise St Kitts and Nevis Pa­tri­ots. "I've been play­ing in the CPL for about six to sev­en years now. It doesn't mat­ter what fran­chise I'm go­ing to. I al­ready know most of the lo­cal guys. I played with them or against them in the past so I am look­ing for­ward to the CPL. This CPL is go­ing to be a big one for me."

Like most Caribbean peo­ple, whether liv­ing in the Caribbean or the di­as­po­ra in any part of the globe, Thomas is hurt by the West In­dies per­for­mance and sub­se­quent elim­i­na­tion from the World Cup Qual­i­fiers. The two-time world cham­pi­ons lost match­es against Zim­bab­we, and as­so­ciate teams Nether­lands and Scot­land in a three-match slide. The West In­dies will miss the ODI World Cup for the first time in its his­to­ry. "It hurt every­one in the Caribbean. Every­one ex­pect­ed the West In­dies team to come out (qual­i­fy) com­fort­ably. It was painful to watch."

The Ja­maican is hop­ing the team can bounce back and get back to win­ning ways so they can "make the Caribbean proud."