ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Vet­er­an off-spin­ner Anisa Mo­hammed’s ca­reer was on Wednes­day thrown a life­line when she was named in an in­jury-rav­aged 13-mem­ber squad for a three-match One-Day In­ter­na­tion­al se­ries against six-time World cham­pi­ons Aus­tralia start­ing next week Fri­day.

The T&T play­er, who cel­e­brates her 31st birth­day next week, has played 117 ODIs but has not suit­ed up since the Pak­istan se­ries in Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates back in Feb­ru­ary, hav­ing been dropped for the tour of Ire­land and Eng­land in May.

Twen­ty-one year-old bats­man Re­niece Boyce, whose on­ly ODI came two years ago, has al­so been re­called while se­lec­tors have called up un­capped 19-year-old Guyanese medi­um-pac­er Shabi­ka Gajn­abi for the first time.

Their pres­ence was trig­gered by the loss of new-ball seam­er Shak­era Sel­man and bats­men Chedean Na­tion and She­maine Camp­belle – all first choice play­ers – who have been ruled out through in­jury.

Fur­ther, vet­er­an all-rounder De­an­dra Dot­tin is still re­cov­er­ing fol­low­ing surgery, and has been side­lined for a sec­ond suc­ces­sive tour.

“The pan­el se­lect­ed the best avail­able play­ers from the camp in An­tigua over the last month, as a re­sult of most of our se­nior play­ers be­ing un­avail­able due to in­jury,” in­ter­im chair­man of se­lec­tors, Robert Haynes, said.

“We have in­clud­ed Anisa Mo­hammed and Kyshona Knight who have a lot of ex­pe­ri­ence be­tween them, which is re­quired when play­ing against Aus­tralia, the top-ranked women’s team.”

“As a re­sult of the in­juries to our se­nior play­ers, it gave us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to se­lect two of our younger play­ers in Shabi­ka Gajn­abi and Kar­ish­ma Ramharack to give the cap­tain more op­tions in the bowl­ing de­part­ment.”

Mo­hammed’s ca­reer looked at an end when she, along with fel­low vet­er­an Trinida­di­an Meris­sa Aguillera who has since re­tired, was dropped for the tour of Eng­land last April.

It fol­low­ing a do­mes­tic cham­pi­onship cam­paign where she claimed just nine wick­ets from five match­es in the 50-overs com­pe­ti­tion and five from as many games in the Twen­ty20 for­mat.

At the time, Haynes said Mo­hammed’s per­for­mance was not “what we ex­pect­ed”, not­ing that cap­tain Stafanie Tay­lor and vice-cap­tain Hay­ley Matthews could pro­vide the spin op­tions.

Mo­hammed has tak­en 146 wick­ets and is the fifth high­est wick­et-tak­er in the for­mat.

Boyce, mean­while, played a sin­gle ODI dur­ing the ICC Women’s World Cup in Eng­land but failed to ex­cite and her three T20 In­ter­na­tion­als late last year on the tour of New Zealand al­so brought pre­cious lit­tle suc­cess.

Gajn­abi is al­so ex­pect­ed to pro­vide a handy bat­ting op­tion down the or­der for West In­dies, her 77 in the CWI Women’s Cham­pi­onship ear­li­er this year prov­ing her worth at the crease.

The first ODI is sched­uled for Coolidge Crick­et Ground here with the next two games card­ed for the Vi­vian Richards Crick­et Ground on Sep­tem­ber 8 and 11. The three match­es form part of the ICC Women’s Cham­pi­onship, the qual­i­fi­er for the 2021 World Cup.

The tour will al­so in­clude a three-match T20 se­ries at Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bar­ba­dos from Sep­tem­ber 14-18.

SQUAD – Stafanie Tay­lor (cap­tain), Hay­ley Matthews (vice-cap­tain), Re­niece Boyce, Afy Fletch­er, Chinelle Hen­ry, Shamil­ia Con­nell, Sta­cy Ann King, Natasha McLean, Ky­cia Knight, Kyshona Knight, Anisa Mo­hammed, Kar­ish­ma Ramharack, Shabi­ka Gajn­abi.

(CMC)