BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos –Pac­er Jay­den Seales said the West In­dies A team tour of South Africa will be im­por­tant to his short and long-term ca­reer plans.

The 22-year-old from Trinidad and To­ba­go said he hoped to use the trip to South Africa to reaf­firm his bona fides and stake a strong claim for a re­call to the se­nior West In­dies side from Jan­u­ary to Feb­ru­ary for the tour of Aus­tralia, where he broke down more than a year ago with a ca­reer-threat­en­ing knee in­jury that re­quired surgery.

“I hope to per­form well for the A team and pick up wick­ets, re­main con­sis­tent, and main­tain pres­sure for the cap­tain,” he said.

“This is a chance for me to try to get back in­to the se­nior Test team, and try to keep my­self fit as long as pos­si­ble and per­form for West In­dies for a long time.”

Trinidad and To­ba­go-born Seales, who made his se­nior Test de­but for West In­dies three years ago at the age of 19, is still work­ing his way back af­ter be­ing side­lined for al­most a year with a knee in­jury.

He made spo­radic ap­pear­ances for the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers squad that reached the fi­nal of the Caribbean Pre­mier League Twen­ty20 tour­na­ment in Sep­tem­ber be­fore they were beat­en by hosts Guyana Ama­zon War­riors.

Seales was al­so a mem­ber of the T&T Red Force squad that beat Lee­ward Is­lands Hur­ri­canes to win the West In­dies Su­per50 Cup on home soil last week and claim an un­prece­dent­ed 14th ti­tle—but he did not play in the fi­nal.

He has tak­en 37 wick­ets in 10 Tests and be­came the youngest West In­dies bowler to claim five wick­ets in a Test against Pak­istan two years ago, and he is ex­pect­ed to play an im­por­tant role with the ball for West In­dies A, which is led by his Red Force and se­nior West In­dies Test team­mate, Joshua Da Sil­va.

“I am look­ing for­ward to play­ing in South Africa again,” he added. “I have a lot of good mem­o­ries play­ing there in the ICC Men’s Un­der-19 Crick­et World Cup three years ago, so I am hap­py to be play­ing there again, and I am ex­cit­ed about get­ting back to play­ing red-ball match­es.

“Some of my (Un­der-19) team­mates are go­ing back to South Africa with me now, so it’s just about rekin­dling that same en­er­gy we had and do­ing our best for West In­dies.”

Eng­lish coun­ty side, Sus­sex an­nounced this week, the sign­ing of Seales as an over­seas bowler for next sea­son.

He had been signed for this year’s sea­son, but he was forced to with­draw be­cause of a knee in­jury.

Seales will be avail­able for Sus­sex from the start of the sea­son un­til June 8, en­abling him to play in the Coun­ty Cham­pi­onship and Twen­ty20 Blast be­fore he de­parts hope­ful­ly to be a part of the West In­dies squad for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup to be joint­ly host­ed in the Caribbean and the Unit­ed States.

He said the last year of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion af­ter knee surgery was chal­leng­ing, but he was ready to put that be­hind him and fo­cus on greater things.

“Re­hab was very long,” he said. “The ses­sions were quite long, but I must say thanks to Crick­et West In­dies for al­low­ing me to do the surgery in Eng­land and work­ing with the phys­i­cal ther­a­py team in Trinidad.

“The phys­i­cal ther­a­py team worked with me from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., six days a week dur­ing that pe­ri­od, and they got me back to where I am now, and I am just look­ing to keep im­prov­ing on my fit­ness.

“I had days when I was frus­trat­ed hav­ing to leave home at sev­en or eight o’clock in the morn­ings, and not com­ing back home un­til it was dark in traf­fic. There were times I didn’t want to go, but I al­ways knew this was where I want­ed to be, I want­ed to be play­ing crick­et for West In­dies again, so I pushed through.

“All of the phys­io­ther­a­pists helped me out too. They spoke to me all the time be­cause they could see how frus­trat­ed I was at times, so thanks to them for keep­ing on track.”

West In­dies A 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. (CMC)