BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos – Team cap­tain Joshua Da Sil­va said he was ex­cit­ed about lead­ing West In­dies A on their trip to South Africa be­cause of the pos­si­bil­i­ties that it will present to the play­ers.

The team de­part­ed from Bar­ba­dos on Tues­day for a trip on which they will play on­ly three “Tests” against South Africa A be­tween No­vem­ber 21 and De­cem­ber 8 in the cities of Benoni, East Lon­don, and Bloem­fontein.

“It will be the sec­ond time that I will be go­ing to South Africa for the year, but I am ex­cit­ed to lead this team and learn­ing from the ex­pe­ri­ence, and I hope that every­body takes it with both hands, and we have a suc­cess­ful tour,” he said in an in­ter­view with CWI Me­dia.

“It is just about tak­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty and gain­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. We have a few young guys on the team, so it’s about them learn­ing, and do­ing the right thing, and do­ing the ba­sics well, and gelling well with each oth­er, and be hap­py for every­one’s suc­cess. Once we do those things, I have no doubt that every­one will play their part.”

Da Sil­va was at the helm of the side when they vis­it­ed Bangladesh this past Au­gust and won a three-match se­ries 1-0, and he is hop­ing for sim­i­lar re­sults.

He has been the first-choice wick­et­keep­er-bats­man for the se­nior West In­dies Test team for the past three years, and he was part of that side, un­der Kraigg Brath­waite, which vis­it­ed South Africa this past Feb­ru­ary.

“The con­di­tions in South Africa … tak­ing what I learnt about them ear­li­er in the year and hop­ing that I can take that knowl­edge and put it in­to this se­ries and get a few good scores, and hope­ful­ly that will lead the team to a cou­ple of vic­to­ries,” he said.

“A se­ries win is def­i­nite­ly what we are go­ing there to do. We go­ing to play our hearts out to win every match. It’s not go­ing to be easy, we know that for sure. But putting our best foot for­ward and do­ing the right things for as long as pos­si­ble, I am pret­ty con­fi­dent we can get the re­sults.”

Da Sil­va al­so felt the se­ries could be a dress re­hearsal for sev­er­al play­ers hope­ful of mak­ing the se­nior Test team for the tour of Aus­tralia next Jan­u­ary to Feb­ru­ary.

“The con­di­tions in Aus­tralia are sim­i­lar, so tak­ing this op­por­tu­ni­ty to play some four-day match­es be­fore that Test se­ries be­cause we will not have any lo­cal­ly – to go to South Africa and play in those con­di­tions, gain that ex­pe­ri­ence, and gain some form for Aus­tralia will be good,” he said.

Tevin Im­lach was named the vice-cap­tain of the squad, which in­cludes five play­ers with se­nior in­ter­na­tion­al Test ex­pe­ri­ence – Da Sil­va, left-han­ders Tage­nar­ine Chan­der­paul and Kirk McKen­zie, and fast bowlers Jay­den Seales and Sher­mon Lewis.

Three play­ers that made their first-class de­buts this year were al­so named in the squad – bats­man Kevlon An­der­son, fast bowler and Guyana Harpy Ea­gles team­mate Shamar Joseph, and Ja­maica Scor­pi­ons spin bowl­ing all-rounder Ab­hi­jai Mans­ingh.

For­mer Ja­maica left-han­der and West In­dies cap­tain Jim­my Adams, the for­mer Crick­et West In­dies di­rec­tor of crick­et, and for­mer Aus­tralia fast bowler Shaun Tait are the as­sis­tant coach­es.

CMC