India, N/Zealand, Bangladesh in busy Caribbean summer; Imran Khan alters WI’s plans

Thirty days of classy cricket in all three formats from June to August! Two Tests, nine One-day Internationals and 11 T20Is!

The Caribbean region is in for a long, hot summer of cricket in 2022 in what CWI CEO Johnny Grave called ‘the busiest year of cricket ever in the West Indies’.

Photo: West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite (second from right) hugs vice-captain Jermaine Blackwood as the team celebrates a 10-wicket win over England in Grenada on 27 March 2022.
(Copyright Getty Images)

Bangladesh, on tour from 16 June to 16 July, will start things off with two ICC World Test Championship matches in Antigua and St Lucia.

The two Tests will be followed by two T20Is at the fully refurbished Windsor Park in Dominica and one T20I and three ODIs at the Guyana National Stadium. The Dominica T20Is will be the first international matches to be played at Windsor Park since it was damaged by a hurricane in 2017.


India are next up, beginning their white-ball tour in Trinidad and Tobago on 22 July. The Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain hosts the first three ODIs between 22 and 27 July before three separate venues welcome Rohit Sharma’s tourists for the next five T20Is.

Photo: West Indies batsmen Nicholas Pooran (left) and Rovman Powell.
(via CWI Media)

Friday 29 July will see the first ever Men’s T20I to be played at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in the south of Trinidad. Warner Park in St Kitts and the Broward County Cricket Stadium in Lauderhill, Florida will be the venues for the next two pairs of T20Is, ending on August 6 and 7.

New Zealand’s white ball tour of the Caribbean, rescheduled from 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, then bowls off in Jamaica with three T20Is. It then moves to Barbados for three day/night CG United ODIs from 17 August to 21 August.

All nine CG United ODIs are part of the ICC ODI Super League with the Nicholas Pooran-led West Indies aiming to qualify directly for the ICC World Cup in 2023.

Tickets for the Bangladesh Tests, priced at just US$6.00, will go on sale from June 3 with sale of tickets for the white ball matches starting later.

Photo: West Indies pacer Jayden Seales (left) celebrates the wicket of England batsman Chris Foakes.

Tickets for the matches against New Zealand will start at US$10 while it will cost at least twice that to see India.

Meanwhile, Pooran’s white ball side, who beat their Dutch hosts by seven wickets in the first of three scheduled ODIs yesterday, will play the three ODIs in Pakistan later this month not in Rawalpindi but in Multan.

The white-ballers were scheduled to take on Pakistan in three T20Is and three ODIs, part of the Cricket World Cup Super League, in December last year when Kieron Pollard was still at the helm of the team. But a Covid outbreak in the West Indies camp forced the postponement of the ODIs, carded for Rawalpindi, to this month


Behind the decision to relocate is a man who for many years was a thorn in the side of WI skippers. Now Imran Khan, the iconic former Pakistan captain who retired in 1992 and eventually became his country’s prime minister in 2018, is back posing problems for the newly appointed West Indies skipper, who only made his senior team debut in 2016.

Photo: Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan leads a rally in his homeland.

On 25 May, in the wake of his removal from office after a no-confidence motion, Imran organised a protest rally in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. And the possibility of the former prime minister planning further protest rallies in the capital over the coming days is very real so Multan, which had been identified early as a back-up option, has replaced Rawalpindi, which is not far from the capital.

Multan is situated in southern Punjab and is among the hottest cities in the country, with temperatures in the high 40s expected on the scheduled match days. Pakistan has never hosted elite cricket at this time of year due to the summer heat, with nearly all high-level competitions, including the domestic season, played during the winter and spring months between September and April.

In a bid to mitigate the weather conditions, starting time for the three games will be 4pm.

There will be no bio-secure bubble for the series. After a training camp in Lahore from 1-4 June, the Pakistan squad will move to Multan on 5 June.

Photo: West Indies ODI opener and vice-captain Shai Hope.
(Copyright AFP via Getty)

The West Indians are scheduled to travel to Multan on a charter flight after arriving in Islamabad from the Netherlands on 6 June.

The Caribbean players are at their best with the sun on their backs and yesterday’s temperature was so low that many of the players kept their hands in their pockets between overs and even between balls.

Hayden Walsh Jr, widely recognised as one of the best fieldsmen on the WI team, mis-fielded no fewer than five times yesterday and even contrived to drop an albeit difficult catch on the square-leg boundary.

Still, Pooran’s West Indians are likely to be more at home in high heat than in low temperatures. They should give a better account of themselves than Pollard’s troops did last year when they lost all three of the T20Is.

Photo: West Indies pacer Alzarri Joseph (left) celebrates the wicket of India batsman Virat Kohli during the February 2022 ODI Series.
(Copyright BCCI)

FULL MATCH SCHEDULES

West Indies vs Pakistan

8 June:  First ODI, Multan, 4pm

10 June: Second ODI, Multan, 4pm

12 June: Third ODI, Multan, 4pm

Photo: West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite.
(Copyright Getty Images)

Bangladesh tour

16-20 June: 1st Test – Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Antigua. Local start time 10am/9am Jamaica time

24-28 June: 2nd Test – Daren Sammy Cricket Ground, St Lucia. Local start time 10am/9am Jamaica time

2 July: 1st T20I – Windsor Park, Dominica. Local start time 1:30pm/12:30pm Jamaica time

3 July: 2nd T20I – Windsor Park, Dominica Local start time 1:30pm/12:30pm Jamaica time

7 July: 3rd T20I – Guyana National Stadium, Guyana, Local start time 1:30pm/12:30pm Jamaica time

10 July: 1st CG United ODI – Guyana National Stadium, Guyana. Local start time 9:30am/8:30am Jamaica time

13 July: 2nd CG United ODI – Guyana National Stadium, Guyana. Local start time 9:30am/8:30am Jamaica time

16 July: 3rd CG United ODI – Guyana National Stadium, Guyana. Local start time 9:30am/8:30am Jamaica time

Photo: West Indies’ middle-order batsman Rovman Powell sweeps successfully to leg during the third and final ODI against Bangladesh at the Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Chittagong on 25 January 2021.
(Copyright Munir Uz Zaman / AFP via Getty)

India tour

22 July: 1st CG United ODI – Queen’s Park Oval, Trinidad. Local start time 9:30am/8:30am Jamaica time

24 July: 2nd CG United ODI – Queen’s Park Oval, Trinidad. Local start time 9:30am/8:30am Jamaica time

27 July: 3rd CG United ODI – Queen’s Park Oval, Trinidad. Local start time 9:30am/8:30am Jamaica time

29 July: 1st T20I – Brian Lara Cricket Academy, Trinidad. Local start time 10:30am/9:30am Jamaica time

1 August: 2nd T20I – Warner Park, St Kitts. Local start time 10:30am/9:30am Jamaica time

2 August: 3rd T20I – Warner Park, St Kitts. Local start time 10:30am/9:30am Jamaica time

6 August: 4th T20I – Broward County Cricket Stadium, Lauderhill, Florida, USA. Local start time 10:30am/9:30am Jamaica time

7 August: 5th T20I – Broward County Cricket Stadium, Lauderhill, Florida, USA. Local start time 10:30am/9:30am Jamaica time

Photo: West Indies allrounder Jason Holder, who has been given a well-deserved rest.
(via CWI Media)

New Zealand tour

10 August: 1st T20I – Sabina Park, Jamaica. Provisional local start time 1:30pm/2:30pm Eastern Caribbean time.

12 August: 2nd T20I – Sabina Park, Jamaica. Provisional local start time 1:30pm/2:30pm Eastern Caribbean time.

14 August: 3rd T20I – Sabina Park, Jamaica. Provisional local start time 1:30pm/2:30pm Eastern Caribbean time.

17 August: 1st CG United ODI – Kensington Oval, Barbados. Local start time 2pm/1pm Jamaica time.

19 August: 2nd CG United ODI – Kensington Oval, Barbados. Local start time 2pm/1pm Jamaica time.

21 August: 3rd CG United ODI – Kensington Oval, Barbados. Local start time 2pm/1pm Jamaica time.

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