An interim administration is among Deryck Murray’s suggestions
Former West Indies wicketkeeper Deryck Murray is the latest on a long list of past players to raise concerns regarding the current state of cricket in the region. The 82-year-old has questioned the “direction” of West Indies cricket, as well as Cricket West Indies’ ability to competently address the long-standing issues plaguing the sport, including poor on-field results.
While the West Indies batted valiantly in the second innings of the first Test against New Zealand to earn a draw, the crux of the matter for the Trinbagonian is something else. “We get a one-off performance like that every few months,” Murray soft-pedalled, “maybe every year, and we think we've turned the corner—we are not at the corner; we are on a roundabout.”
Speaking on Mason and Guest, Murray went on to question, “Who is steering the car? Which direction are we trying to go in? What is happening?” He predicts that without an overhaul of CWI, the West Indies will eventually lose its value in international cricket.
“I think we have reached a very significant point in West Indies cricket where the future can take [one of] two extreme courses,” he began to explain. “One is that we maintain the status quo, and we continue to drift into irrelevance.”
According to the former West Indies vice-captain, CWI’s open-mindedness and acceptance of individual territories competing at the Olympics foreshadow a changing tide. “I am very, very disappointed that the West Indies board has not approached the International Olympic Committee for special dispensation for there to be a West Indies cricket team—that has been in existence for 100 years—to be represented at the Olympics,” Murray passioned.
Super50 shortened to three rounds, while T20 Blaze retains hybrid format
The upcoming season of Cricket West Indies’ Women’s Super50 Cup has been trimmed to three rounds. A deviation from the previous league format, which had each of the six teams playing the others once, resulting in five bouts in addition to a championship game and ordinal playoffs. CWI has not confirmed the reason for the change or how the fixtures were determined.
The Super50 Cup becomes the second senior regional competition to be contracted in the last three months. Only six teams contested the Men’s edition of the tournament in November, down from the usual eight. For that, CWI cited financial hardship.
In December, CWI and the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) also announced the suspension of the 2026 edition of the Breakout T20 League, owing to a congested international and domestic schedule.
Despite the restructuring of the Super50, the T20 Blaze is set to retain its hybrid model—featuring a five-round round-robin. Seedings will determine the ‘medal’ matches thereafter, with first, second, and third places up for grabs.
Ian Bishop insists West Indies has captaincy ‘decision to make' ahead of next summer’s Tests
Former West Indies fast bowler Ian Bishop says the next five months could be a defining period for head coach Daren Sammy and Test captain Roston Chase. Bishop’s comments follow a frustrating all-format tour of New Zealand, where the West Indies managed one T20I win and a Test draw while being swept in the One-Day Internationals.
“Roston, by his own admission, has struggled big time with the bat,” Bishop told i955 FM. “And it still sort of bemuses me that a guy who can score five hundreds in his first twenty or so Test matches has reached this point in his career at age 33, where he's struggling to put even moderate innings together.”
The West Indies will remain out of the Test arena until they host Sri Lanka in June 2026. The idle period, according to Bishop, presents them with enough time to review Chase’s role and subsequent place in the side.
“The West Indies are fortunate,” he said, “in that they have five or six months before their next Test series to try to determine whether Roston is capable, first of all, of holding his place in the team and whether he can continue [as captain]. So that's their decision to make.”
Cricket West Indies’ Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Chris Dehring expects regional cricket’s attempt to adapt to inevitable shifts in the sport’s ecosystem will lead to a decline in the frequency with which teams such as the Leeward Islands and Windward Islands compete as multinational outfits. Dehring highlighted that the introduction of cricket at the Pan American Games and its reintroduction to the Olympics, where only sovereign nations can compete, will see an increase in the number of games contested by individual territories.
“If you think about Pan American Games qualifications every two years and Olympic Games qualifications thrown into the mix, you can see a different cadence of cricket taking place in the Caribbean over the next five, 10, 15, or 20 years,” Dehring told the Mason and Guest panel.
“And of course, individual countries are who play in those tournaments. So it won't necessarily be Leewards and Windwards. It will be St. Vincent, Dominica, Antigua, Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad & Tobago competing to qualify now for a bigger prize.”
He, however, insists the changing events should not be feared but rather embraced. Dehring hopes the inherent nationalism attached to participating in these tournaments will push regional governments to pour more resources into the sport.
Poor personal form and a winless run have left Chase nowhere to hide
“I think I had a tough series, very below par for my standard. I didn't really lead from the front on the field. Leading, in terms of words and encouraging and inspiring the team, was all good, but in terms of going out there and producing and letting the team have someone to look up to as a leader, I let myself and the team down.”
That was the self-assessment delivered by captain Roston Chase following West Indies’ 2-0 loss in their three-match Test series against New Zealand. Chase finished the tour with a batting average of 7.0 and a high score of 29.
The 33-year-old’s criticism of his performance was preceded by that of head coach Daren Sammy, who, ahead of the 3rd Test, argued that “runs not coming from [our] number seven and five” was a potential injury trigger for bowlers. While showing appreciation to his bowlers, Sammy chided the Windies batters for not spending enough time at the crease.
Unlike Chase’s suggestion, however, his poor output predates the just-concluded series. The Barbadian has scored 221 runs across 16 innings since being drafted back into the Test side as skipper.
