Shannon Gabriel, from Trinidad and Tobago, was the subject of comparisons to a young Ian Bishop when he was among the 15 youngsters picked as the first batch at the high-performance centre the WICB launched in 2010. He quickly became a key member of T&T's first-class attack, winning selection for the Champions League T20 in 2011 and claiming a maiden five-wicket haul against Barbados in the semi-final of the regional four-day competition in April 2012.

Gabriel won a Test call-up on the tour of England that year, and when T&T team-mate Ravi Rampaul was forced out injured, he made his debut, at Lord's, where he took four wickets, though he also sustained a back injury that sent him home from the tour. His next Test came nearly a year later, but it kicked off a run in which Gabriel has been a regular in the side as a muscular enforcer. Against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi in 2016, he took six wickets, and a few months later in the return series, he went a few better with 9 for 92 in Bridgetown in a series-levelling win for West Indies. Unlike in that game, Gabriel's finest hour, his 13 wickets against Sri Lanka in Gros Islet in 2018, came in a draw.

Much more infamously, in 2017 in Roseau, when called on to bat to save the game, and series, Gabriel saw out 21 balls patiently in the company of Roston Chase, who was batting on a hundred. Then he swung wildly at a loopy delivery outside off stump and played on, handing the match, the last Test for Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq, to Pakistan.