ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Vet­er­an fast bowler Ke­mar Roach has ex­pect­ed­ly been named in a West In­dies 15-mem­ber squad to face New Zealand in a three-match Test se­ries be­gin­ning next month.

The 37-year-old’s se­lec­tion does not come as a sur­prise, hav­ing been in­vit­ed by Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) to take part in a two-week High-Per­for­mance prepa­ra­tion camp ear­li­er this month.

Roach, the fifth-high­est wick­et tak­er for the West In­dies in Tests (285), along with Jay­den Seales, will lead the Windies’ pace at­tack, miss­ing the likes of speed­sters Alzarri Joseph and Shamar Joseph, who have been side­lined for the rest of the year with in­juries.

Mean­while, Ojay Shields, who was al­so part of the camp, is in line to make his de­but in a squad de­plet­ed of pac­ers.

The 29-year-old Ja­maican fast bowler has played 16 First Class match­es and tak­en 34 wick­ets.

Mid­dle-or­der bats­man Kavem Hodge has al­so been re­called to the side. Hodge, who last fea­tured in a Test match for the Windies against Pak­istan in ear­ly Jan­u­ary, has played 11 Tests and scored 556 runs at an av­er­age of 25.27.

Those trav­el­ling from the Caribbean joined the rest of the squad in New Zealand on No­vem­ber 20, giv­ing them con­sid­er­able time to be­come ac­cli­ma­tised and take part in a two-day warm-up match against a New Zealand XI in Lin­coln, Christchurch, ahead of the Test se­ries.

CWI’s Di­rec­tor of Crick­et, Miles Bas­combe, said all ef­forts had been made to en­sure the squad was one of the best-pre­pared groups for an away tour to New Zealand.

“New Zealand has tra­di­tion­al­ly been one of the tough­est places for any tour­ing side, which is why strong em­pha­sis has been placed on tar­get­ed prepa­ra­tion.

“The re­cent high-per­for­mance camp here in An­tigua was de­signed to repli­cate, as close­ly as pos­si­ble, the con­di­tions we ex­pect to face, par­tic­u­lar­ly the pace-friend­ly sur­faces,” Bas­combe said.

“That lev­el of in­ten­tion­al prepa­ra­tion, com­bined with the ad­van­tage of sev­er­al squad mem­bers al­ready in New Zealand for the white-ball por­tion of the tour gain­ing valu­able time to ac­cli­mate, means this group goes in­to this se­ries as well-pre­pared as any West In­dies squad to tour there in re­cent years.”

The se­ries forms part of the 2025-2027 ICC World Test Cham­pi­onship and will be the West In­dies’ fi­nal fix­ture for 2025.

West In­dies Test Squad to New Zealand: Ros­ton Chase (cap­tain), Jomel War­ri­can, Al­ick Athanaze, John Camp­bell, Tage­nar­ine Chan­der­paul, Justin Greaves, Kavem Hodge, Shai Hope, Tevin Im­lach, Bran­don King, Jo­hann Layne, An­der­son Phillip, Ke­mar Roach, Jay­den Seales, Ojay Shields.

CMC