Windies enter World Cup ranked No. 4

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CMC):

Two-time world champions West Indies will enter the ICC Men's Twenty20 World Cup, starting on Saturday in the Caribbean and the United States, ranked the fourth-best team in the world in the format.

According to the International Cricket Council (ICC), the sport's world organising body, the Caribbean side gained a huge boost in the rankings following their clean sweep of South Africa in their three-match series that ended on Sunday and was exclusively played in Jamaica - even without several regular players.

The World Cup co-hosts, the champions of the 2012 and 2016 editions of the global showpiece, moved up behind the trio of 2007 champions India, 2021 champions Australia and defending champions England.

Solid performances from a handful of West Indies players in the series also propelled them up the rankings for the format.

World Cup-bound Brandon King proved his leadership qualities on home soil when he led the side in the absence of appointed World Cup captain and fellow Jamaican Rovman Powell, and he finished the series with 159 runs that enabled him to jump five places in the batting rankings to eighth.

Johnson Charles, his World Cup-bound opening partner throughout the series, hit a blistering 69 from 26 balls in a Player of the Match performance in the final match, and the 35-year-old St Lucian gained 17 spots to reach 20th in the batting rankings.

Barbadian ambidextrous all-rounder Kyle Mayers, a World Cup reserve, is now 31st in the batting rankings, and World Cup-bound Guyanese left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie, the Player of the Series against the Proteas, is now 27th place in the bowling rankings. They were the other major beneficiaries for the Caribbean side from the recently concluded series.

West Indies are bidding to become the first team to win an unprecedented third T20 World Cup and will play in Group C of the tournament with ICC full members Afghanistan and New Zealand, and ICC associate teams Papua New Guinea and Uganda.

Their first two matches in the tournament will be at the Guyana National Stadium, where they face the Papuans on June 2 and take on the Ugandans six days later.

The Caribbean side will complete the group stage against the Black Caps, as the New Zealanders are known, on June 12 at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Trinidad, and the Afghans five days later at the venue named after their head coach, Daren Sammy, in his homeland of St Lucia.

Before the tournament, the co-hosts will face Australia on Thursday in an official warm-up match at the Queen's Park Oval in the Trinidad capital of Port of Spain, starting at 7 p.m. Eastern Caribbean Time.

West Indies won their two titles under the leadership of Sammy and guidance of coaches Ottis Gibson and Phil Simmons, respectively.