ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Af­ter lead­ing the West In­dies Un­der-19s to se­ries wins over Sri Lan­ka and Eng­land, Joshua Dorne will cap­tain the side at next year’s ICC Crick­et World Cup.

Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) made the an­nounce­ment in a press re­lease on Wednes­day, with Dorne set to lead a 15-mem­ber squad at the World Cup, which will be held in Namib­ia and Zim­bab­we from Jan­u­ary 15 to Feb­ru­ary 6, 2026.

The 19-year-old Dorne was at the helm when the Windies de­feat­ed Sri Lan­ka 4-3 in Au­gust and trounced Eng­land 5-2 in Sep­tem­ber.

All-rounder Jonathan van Lange has been ap­point­ed vice-cap­tain of a strong team that al­so in­cludes Jew­el An­drew, the youngest play­er to rep­re­sent the se­nior team in T20Is and ODIs, as well as Zachary Carter, Matthew Miller, Ja­keem Pol­lard, Shaquan Belle and Vi­tel Lawes, who all played star­ring roles dur­ing both home se­ries.

The West In­dies Un­der-19 squad for the 2026 ICC World Cup

Mic­ah McKen­zie, who made his List A de­but for the West In­dies Acad­e­my against the Sri Lan­ka Emerg­ing Men’s team in June, along with 16-year-old Shamar Ap­ple, who was draft­ed in­to the Guyana Harpy Ea­gles squad for the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed CG Unit­ed Su­per 50 Cup, have al­so been named in the squad.

CWI’s High Per­for­mance Man­ag­er, Dwain Gill ex­plained that the team was se­lect­ed fol­low­ing a thor­ough process.

“This squad is the prod­uct of a de­lib­er­ate and well-struc­tured prepa­ra­tion and se­lec­tion process. Per­for­mances in re­gion­al Un­der-17 and Un­der-19 com­pe­ti­tions were close­ly mon­i­tored, with an em­pha­sis on iden­ti­fy­ing play­ers with spe­cial­ist skills and the adapt­abil­i­ty re­quired for in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et.”

“In as­sem­bling this group, we have aligned their de­vel­op­ment with the style of play we ex­pect at the se­nior lev­el, en­sured ex­po­sure to high-qual­i­ty match op­por­tu­ni­ties and placed a strong fo­cus on lead­er­ship, tac­ti­cal aware­ness and in­di­vid­ual sup­port with­in their ter­ri­to­ries,” Gill said.

“The re­sult is a bal­anced and com­pet­i­tive squad, well po­si­tioned to per­form at the Un­der-19 World Cup and con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly to the long-term fu­ture of West In­dies crick­et.”

West In­dies have been drawn in Group D along­side South Africa, Afghanistan and Tan­za­nia. All group match­es will be played at the High-Per­for­mance Oval in Wind­hoek, Namib­ia.

Ahead of the tour­na­ment, they will play warm-up match­es against Ire­land and Japan in Wind­hoek.

The top three teams from each group will ad­vance to the Su­per Six phase fol­lowed by the Se­mi-Fi­nals on Feb­ru­ary 3 and 4, and the fi­nal on Feb­ru­ary 6 at Harare Sports Club in Zim­bab­we.

SQUAD

WEST IN­DIES UN­DER-19s: Joshua Dorne (cap­tain), Jew­el An­drew, Shamar Ap­ple, Shaquan Belle, Zachary Carter, Tanez Fran­cis, R’jai Git­tens, Vi­tel Lawes, Mic­ah McKen­zie, Matthew Miller, Is­ra-el Mor­ton, Ja­keem Pol­lard, Aa­di­an Racha, Ku­nal Tilokani, Jonathan Van Lange.

RE­SERVES: Bren­dan Boodoo, Tyriek Bryan, Earsin­ho Fontaine, De­shawn James.

MAN­AGE­MENT UNIT: Ro­han Nurse (head coach), Jerome Tay­lor (as­sis­tant coach), Niki­ta Miller (as­sis­tant coach), Kwayne Dal­rym­ple (phys­io­ther­a­pist), Shayne Coop­er (strength & con­di­tion­ing coach), Dr Dwain Archibald (team doc­tor), Clint St Hill (man­ag­er).

CMC