Kieran Powell

A powerful left-handed opening batsman, Kieran Powell has had two separate stints at cricket and one with baseball in his short sporting career.

Powell represented the Leeward Islands at the U-15 and U-19 level before breaking into the West Indies U-19 team. He played for Nevis in the 2006 Stanford T20 competition and showed glimpses of his natural talent. His attacking game came to the fore in the U-19 WC in Malaysia where he scored 254 runs at a SR of 124. He was selected for the ODI series against Bangladesh in 2009, when the seniors opted out following a dispute with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), but fell for a first-ball duck on his debut at the Warner Park.

Powell scored his first FC century, a fine effort of 131 against the visiting English Lions in early 2011 and that prompted the selectors to blood him into the Test side. Like his ODI debut, there was nothing substantial about his Test debut too. He only managed scores of 3 and 4 versus India at Windsor Park in his maiden outing in whites. He came back strongly in 2012 against Bangladesh and became the first West Indies batsman to hit two hundreds in a Test since Brian Lara in 2001. Powell was selected for West Indies tour of India in November 2013 but faltered against a ruthless Indian bowling attack like the rest of his team-mates.

Powell took a voluntary break from cricket from July 2014 to January 2016 due to personal reasons. He tried his hand at baseball, only to abandon it a few months later after a rather unfruitful stint. After his return to competitive cricket, Powell represented his old side Leeward Islands in the domestic 50-over competition and tasted great success, instantly notching up over 500 runs in a season. That helped him fast-track his international career and he was soon called up to represent the national side for the 3-match ODI series against England at home. Subsequently, he was a part of Test and ODI squads for the series against Pakistan and was also included for the tour of England in August 2017.