ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – West In­dies se­nior men’s cap­tains Ros­ton Chase and Shai Hope, along with fel­low Bar­ba­di­ans Justin Greaves, Joshua Bish­op and Jomel War­ri­can, will join a Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) del­e­ga­tion in Bar­ba­dos for the fu­ner­al of Sir Garfield Sobers on Wednes­day.

Chase, Hope, Greaves and War­ri­can played in the open­ing Test match against Pak­istan at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Trinidad, which the West In­dies won by 90 runs on Tues­day’s fourth day.

In a press re­lease is­sued on Wednes­day, CWI said the five play­ers would fly back for the state fu­ner­al with the as­sis­tance of the Gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos.

They, along with as­sis­tant coach Floyd Reifer will join a CWI del­e­ga­tion that in­cludes Pres­i­dent Dr Kishore Shal­low, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Chris Dehring, along with CWI Di­rec­tors Enoch Lewis, Pres­i­dent of the Lee­ward Is­lands Crick­et Board; Bis­soondyal Singh, Pres­i­dent of the Guyana Crick­et Board; and Clement Mar­cellin, Pres­i­dent of the Wind­ward Is­lands Crick­et Board.

“The op­por­tu­ni­ty for our Bar­ba­di­an rep­re­sen­ta­tives to be present at the state fu­ner­al of The Right Ex­cel­lent Sir Garfield Sobers is a deeply mean­ing­ful one for West In­dies crick­et,” Dr Shal­low said.

“On a day when the crick­et­ing world cel­e­brat­ed his ex­tra­or­di­nary life, the team ho­n­oured his en­dur­ing lega­cy with a per­for­mance that re­flect­ed the courage, re­silience, and skill that de­fined his re­mark­able ca­reer and in­spired gen­er­a­tions.

“We are deeply grate­ful to Prime Min­is­ter, Hon. Mia Amor Mot­t­ley and her Gov­ern­ment for mak­ing this pos­si­ble and reaf­firm our com­mit­ment to pre­serv­ing the mem­o­ry of a true icon whose name will for­ev­er be syn­ony­mous with the great­ness of West In­dies crick­et,” he fur­ther added.

CMC