Most of the West Indies squad had flown to Australia in different groups, following the conclusion of the CPL on Saturday. Hetmyer, who was captain of Guyana Amazon Warriors, was originally scheduled to fly on October 1, but wanted his flight rescheduled due to personal reasons. CWI booked him on a flight that would depart on Monday, only for Hetmyer to subsequently tell Jimmy Adams, CWI’s director of cricket, that he would not be travelling.
“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 1 October at his request, due to family reasons,” CWI said in a media release. “With flight availability a real challenge, a seat was found for him to leave Guyana today, Monday 3 October, meaning he would unfortunately miss the 1st T20 International (T20I) against Australia on Wednesday 5 October at the Metricon Stadium. This morning, Mr Hetmyer, informed the Director of Cricket that he would not be able to get to the airport in time for his flight this afternoon to New York.”
Adams said that Hetmyer had been informed that “any further delay” in travel would cost him his World Cup spot.
“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,” Adams said. “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.”
Brooks will fly out later this week but will not feature in the two-match T20I series against Australia. Brooks will instead join the World Cup squad directly in Melbourne, where Nicholas Pooran’s team will start their campaign in the qualifying round. West Indies are placed in Group B, alongside Ireland, Scotland and Zimbabwe with the top two teams progressing to the Super 12s.