TORONTO, Ontario, (CMC) – FORMER Barbados Pride left-handed batsman and part-time off-spinner is one of four players with Caribbean ties named in the Canada provisional 15-member squad for the ICC Men’s Twenty20 World Cup in the Caribbean and the United States.

The 25-year-old, who qualifies to play for the Canadians because his mother was born there, as well as Jamaica-born batsman, Aaron Johnson, and Guyana-born pacers Dilon Heyliger and Jeremy Gordon are the four players with ties to the Caribbean.

All, except Gordon, were part of the Canada side that played in the ill-fated five-match series that neighbours and hosts United States won 4-0 last month at the Grand Prairie View Stadium in the city of Houston in the State of Texas.

Kirton, one of only three players in the squad under 30, made his first-class debut for Pride in the 2018-19 West Indies Championship.

He was selected to play for Pride again in the West Indies Super50 Cup tournament in October 2019, and he also managed to earn a Caribbean Premier League contract with the now decommissioned Jamaica Tallawahs the following year.

During this period, he had already started to divide his time between Bridgetown and Toronto, and he made his debut in the T20 format for the Canadians against Jersey in October 2019, but he had to wait until last year to make his One-day International debut.

All World Cup provisional squads may be changed up to May 25, after which any alterations will require approval from the technical committee of the tournament.

This is the first time that Canada will be playing in the T20 World Cup, and they face a difficult task in Group “A” of the tournament against co-hosts United States, and the three Test nations of India, Pakistan, and Ireland.

The Canadians will play all their matches in the U.S. starting with a renewal of the oldest rivalry in the history of the sport against the co-hosts in the tournament opener on June 1 at the Grand Prairie Stadium in the American city of Dallas in the state of Texas.

They play against the Irish on June 7 at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium near New York City, where they also play the Pakistanis four days later before closing out against the Indians at the Central Broward Regional Park in the city of Lauderhill in the state of Florida.

Squad:

Saad Bin Zafar (captain), Aaron Johnson, Dilon Heyliger, Dilpreet Bajwa, Harsh Thaker, Jeremy Gordon, Junaid Siddiqui, Kaleem Sana, Kanwarpal Tathgur, Navneet Dhaliwal, Nicholas Kirton, Pargat Singh, Ravinderpal Singh, Rayyankhan Pathan, Shreyas Movva.