KHURRAM HABIB

There was finally some buzz at Sabina Park as the big names returned to play in West Indies colours.

Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels, Kieron Pollard and Sunil Narine, all of who missed the ODIs due to issues with the West Indies cricket board, took the field and after a brief chat with coach Stuart Law got down to business.

Cricket West Indies has a rule that entails players to feature in a minimum number of domestic matches (regional 4-day competition) to qualify to play in longer formats, including the ODIs. Since none of them fulfilled the criterion due to their busy T20 franchise cricket schedule, they couldn’t play and that hurt Windies badly.

In T20Is, they’ve been allowed to play. “These are players who are massively experienced in T20 cricket. You don’t need to tell them anything. They’ve played more T20s than me,” coach Stuart Law said.

The hosts, having been thrashed by India 3-1 in the ODIs will look to restore pride when they take on India in the one-off T20I here on Sunday.

West Indies are the world champions in this format and they have had the better of India in the format, winning four and losing two in seven T20Is.

They’ve won two of the three most recent ODIs.

In the two-game T20I series they played, at Lauderhill in USA last year, Windies eked out a onerun win after posting 245 before