EAST LON­DON – West In­dies start an­oth­er “new era” in One-day In­ter­na­tion­als when Shai Hope leads them in­to bat­tle for the first time against hosts South Africa on Thurs­day at Buf­fa­lo Park.

Hope was named the new ODI cap­tain and Rov­man Pow­ell was ap­point­ed the new Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­al cap­tain of the Caribbean side af­ter Nicholas Pooran stepped down from the dual role of white-ball cap­tain last Oc­to­ber fol­low­ing an ear­ly ex­it from the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in Aus­tralia.

The 30-year-old Bar­ba­dos Pride wick­et­keep­er-bats­man, eas­i­ly the most pro­lif­ic West In­dies bats­man in the for­mat over the past three years, will have his hands full try­ing to in­fuse a win­ning cul­ture in­to a side that has lost 21 of their last 30 ODIs.

Hope said hav­ing dif­fer­ent cap­tains (Kraigg Brath­waite leads the Test side) for the three for­mats of the sport on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage was not a hin­drance – rather it gives the vis­i­tors a chance to re­boot and sort them­selves out at the start of a cru­cial year that will in­clude qual­i­fy­ing for the World Cup lat­er in the year.

“I think it gives us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to fo­cus on some­thing more spe­cif­ic, some­thing to build to­wards, be­cause ob­vi­ous­ly this is a tran­si­tion phase for us,” Hope told re­porters dur­ing a news con­fer­ence on the eve of the match.

“It gives us an op­por­tu­ni­ty to see how things can work, and for each cap­tain to lean on each oth­er, and hope­ful­ly, it can lead to good things, and es­pe­cial­ly for the ODI team, def­i­nite­ly to the World Cup.”

Nei­ther West In­dies nor South Africa are guar­an­teed a place in the for­mat’s show­piece event be­cause they lan­guish at eighth and ninth re­spec­tive­ly, in the ICC Men’s Crick­et World Cup (CWC) Su­per League, and both can be over­tak­en by Sri Lan­ka, who play a three-match se­ries against New Zealand lat­er this month.

It is like­ly both sides will be part of the World Cup qual­i­fy­ing tour­na­ment in June and Ju­ly this year in Zim­bab­we in an at­tempt to se­cure the fi­nal two spots in the 10-team fi­nals.

These three ODIs, how­ev­er, do not form part of the Su­per League that start­ed two years ago and in which the top 12 ODI teams and the Nether­lands are play­ing a to­tal of 24 ODIs each, earn­ing them points to­wards au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion with hosts In­dia for the World Cup, which takes place in Oc­to­ber and No­vem­ber this year.

West In­dies have com­plet­ed their sched­ules of match­es, win­ning on­ly nine, and with this in mind, Hope said it was a good op­por­tu­ni­ty for his side to fine tune their way of play­ing ODIs and get back in­to the habit of win­ning.

“It’s a new jour­ney, but we can­not look too far ahead,” he said. “The main fo­cus is this South Africa se­ries, and the key is to start well and fin­ish bet­ter. We need to im­prove in all ar­eas.

“I do not think there is any­thing spe­cif­ic that we need to high­light right now, but I think we all have to come to­geth­er and find the right for­mu­la and get that go­ing be­cause we def­i­nite­ly need to qual­i­fy for that World Cup. Every­thing we do now is geared to­wards that.”

Hope was philo­soph­i­cal about the path­way to the World Cup, and the re­al­i­ty that these three ODIs will not help his side’s cause.

“In­ter­na­tion­al crick­et is in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et,” he said. “I think, when­ev­er you cross that line, your aim is to win games, and I won’t say there is any par­tic­u­lar path we want to take to make it to the World Cup. But when­ev­er we cross that line, we are play­ing for our re­gion, we are play­ing for our coun­try, so every­thing must go out there in­to the mid­dle.

“I won’t say there is any­thing spe­cif­ic for which we were hop­ing be­cause we are play­ing for in­ter­na­tion­al pride and all those peo­ple back in the Caribbean, even all around the world who sup­port West In­dies, and we have to play our hearts out for them.”

The match will be the first ODI in six years to be played at the ground, where the pitch tends to be slow and the bounce low, and to­tals in ex­cess 300 have elud­ed teams in the last five List A match­es, which have de­liv­ered two cen­turies and two hauls of four or more wick­ets.

CMC

Squads:

WEST IN­DIES (from): Shai Hope (cap­tain), Rov­man Pow­ell (vice cap­tain), Shamarh Brooks, Yan­nic Cari­ah, Kea­cy Car­ty, Ros­ton Chase, Shan­non Gabriel, Ja­son Hold­er, Akeal Ho­sein, Alzarri Joseph, Bran­don King, Kyle May­ers, Nicholas Pooran, Ro­mario Shep­herd, Odean Smith.

SOUTH AFRICA (from): Tem­ba Bavu­ma (cap­tain), Ger­ald Co­et­zee, Quin­ton de Kock, Tony de Zorzi, Bjorn For­tu­in, Sisan­da Ma­g­a­la, Lun­gi Ngi­di, Ryan Rick­el­ton, Wayne Par­nell, Andile Phehluk­wayo, Tabraiz Sham­si, Tris­tan Stubbs, Liza­ad Williams, Rassie van der Dussen.