Explosive left-hand batter Shimron Hetmyer has been replaced in the West Indies squad for the forthcoming ICC T20 World Cup after he missed his flight to Australia from Guyana.
He has been replaced by Shamarh Brooks with Cricket West Indies (CWI) informing the International Cricket Council (ICC) of the change. The entire fiasco began when Hetmyer reportedly missed his re-scheduled flight to Australia, which was changed from October 1 to October 3 at his request, citing personal reasons.
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Then, he was booked on another flight two days later from Guyana via New York. However, on the same morning of his scheduled departure, the 25-year-old told CWI director or cricket Jimmy Adams that he wouldn’t make it to the airport on time.
Following the incident, CWI decided to take stringent action and replaced Hetmyer with Brooks. “The decision by the CWI Selection Panel was made as Shimron Hetmyer missed his re-scheduled flight to Australia, which had been changed from Saturday (October 1) at his request, due to family reasons. With flight availability a real challenge, a seat was found for him to leave Guyana today (Monday, October 3), meaning he would unfortunately miss the 1st T20 International against Australia on Wednesday (October 5) at the Metricon Stadium,” said a CWI statement.
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“This morning (October 3), Mr. Hetmyer, informed the Director of Cricket (Jimmy Adams) that he would not be able to get to the airport in time for his flight this afternoon to New York,” added the CWI statement.
“This afternoon we informed the CWI Board of Directors that the selection panel had unanimously decided to replace Shimron Hetmyer with Shamarh Brooks in our T20 World Cup squad. Whilst we changed Shimron’s flight from Saturday to Monday due to family reasons, it was made clear to him that if there were any further delays and issues with his travel to Australia then we would have no choice but to replace him in the squad, as we are not prepared to compromise the team’s ability to prepare for this extremely important global event,” Adams had said.
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Brooks, meanwhile, has competed for the West Indies across all three international formats, including 11 T20Is.
