KINGSTOWN (St Vincent), May 17: Brian Lara is being rested for West Indies’ three One-day Internationals against Pakistan this month so he is ready to face them in the two-Test series. The selectors left the batsman out of West Indies’ 13-man squad named on Monday for the three one-dayers in St Vincent and the Grenadines on May 18 and in St Lucia on May 21 and 22.

Head of Selectors Michael “Joey” Carew said they needed to rest Lara before the Tests against Pakistan starting later this month and thought the one-day series was the correct time.

“His absence puts a lot of additional responsibility on the team and we look forward to them taking up this challenge,” Carew said in a statement.

“As we had stated earlier we would be trying different combinations and we have brought back Wavell Hinds and Pedro Collins,” he added.

The team must recover from the South Africa series that ended on Saturday, which they lost 5-0 to become the first West Indies side to be whitewashed in a home one-day rubber.

“We have to put the South Africa series behind us and take what we learnt from it into the matches against the Pakistanis and I look forward to some measure of success in this series,” added Carew.

The first Test is in Barbados from May 26 with the second set for Jamaica from June 3.

Squad: Shivnarine Chanderpaul (captain), Christopher Gayle, Xavier Marshall, Runako Morton, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Wavell Hinds, Dwayne Smith, Dwayne Bravo, Courtney Browne, Corey Collymore, Daren Powell, Pedro Collins, Ian Bradshaw.—Reuters