Guyanese Gordon and Heyliger in Canada’s squad for World T20

Guyanese pair Jeremy Gordon and Dilon Heyliger have been named in Canada’s 15-man squad for the upcoming ICC Men’s World T20 to be hosted in the Caribbean and USA.

Gordon, the 37-year-old seamer from Berbice, who made his First-Class debut for Guyana against Leeward Islands at Albion in 2007, has appeared in 12 T20 Internationals, taking 17 wickets with a best of 3-6 versus Bermuda last October.

Heyliger, 34, has featured in 36 T20 Internationals for Canada, claiming 39 with a best of 5-16.

With the bat, the Essequibian averages 42.57 and strikes at 180.6, scoring a total of 298 runs in 22 innings. He has only been dismissed seven times in the format.

Revamped side

Canada has also picked uncapped batter Kanwarpal Tathgur, who has played only eight List A games. He is one of the six new faces from the side that played against USA in the five-match T20I series last month.

The others include Gordon, who had made his debut for Canada in 2012; 39-year-old all-rounder Junaid Siddiqui, who last played a T20I in February 2022; left-arm quick Kaleem Sana; 35-year-old batter Ravinderpal Singh, whose previous T20I had come in 2022; and batting all-rounder Rayyan Pathan.

Harsh Thaker, Nicholas Kirton and Dilpreet Bajwa are the only players aged under 30 in the side. The 15-member squad will be led by Saad Bin Zafar.

This is the first time Canada will participate in the T20 World Cup. They will play in the tournament opener against USA in Dallas. India, Pakistan and Ireland are the other teams in their group.

Canada’s squad for T20 World Cup: Saad Bin Zafar (capt), Aaron Johnson, Dilon Heyliger, Dilpreet Bajwa, Harsh Thaker, Jeremy Gordon, Junaid Siddiqui, Kaleem Sana, Kanwarpal Tathgur (wk), Navneet Dhaliwal, Nicholas Kirton, Pargat Singh, Ravinderpal Singh, Rayyankhan Pathan and Shreyas Movva (wk)

Reserves: Tajinder Singh (travelling), Aaditya Varadharajan, Ammar Khalid, Jatinder Matharu and Parveen Kumar