Alzarri Joseph eyes comeback after injury layoff

Af­ter spend­ing near­ly a year on the side­lines with in­jury, West In­dies fast bowler Alzarri Joseph says he is ea­ger to re­turn to in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et and help lift the re­gion­al team to greater heights.

Joseph, 29, is cur­rent­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in Crick­et West In­dies’ high-per­for­mance white-ball camp at Coolidge Crick­et Ground in An­tigua as he works his way back in­to con­tention for the up­com­ing lim­it­ed-overs se­ries against Sri Lan­ka.

The An­tiguan pac­er was ruled out of com­pet­i­tive crick­et for the lat­ter part of 2025 due to a low­er back in­jury and missed the 2026 T20 World Cup in In­dia and Sri Lan­ka. Speak­ing af­ter re­join­ing the squad, Joseph ad­mit­ted the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od was men­tal­ly chal­leng­ing.

“It hurts hav­ing to watch on TV and un­able to help my team­mates,” Joseph said. “It was a tough pe­ri­od hav­ing to sit down and not con­tribute, but I had to fo­cus on re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, strength­en­ing and con­di­tion­ing to get back in­to peak form.”

De­spite the lengthy lay­off, Joseph said he al­ready feels stronger and fit­ter af­ter re­turn­ing to train­ing with the squad.

The fast bowler, who re­mains the youngest West In­di­an to claim a five-wick­et haul in One-Day In­ter­na­tion­als and the fastest re­gion­al play­er to 100 ODI wick­ets, said he is still fo­cused on im­prov­ing his game.

“You can al­ways im­prove and get bet­ter. I nev­er think I’m at my best. There are al­ways skills I can work on,” Joseph said.

Joseph al­so ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the cur­rent West In­dies pace at­tack, which in­cludes Jay­den Seales, Shamar Joseph and Matthew Forde.

“We want to be the best in the world,” Joseph said. “I want to chal­lenge for World Cups and leave West In­dies crick­et in a bet­ter po­si­tion than when I came in.”

The Crick­et West In­dies camp runs un­til May 31 ahead of the Sri Lan­ka se­ries, which be­gins on June 3 at Sabi­na Park.