Glory days over but West Indies still pack a punch in T20Is

There are as many as 21 cricketers from the West Indies in the ICC Hall of Fame, the most for any team after England and Australia, two of the game's oldest sides. The West Indies lifted the first two ODI World Cups and came second in the third, and remain inarguably one of the most influential teams to have played international cricket. 

In Tests, they used to be equally invincible, winning a record 11 Tests on the trot in the 1980s. 

But the glory days are long gone and cricket in the West Indies has seen a massive dip from the 1990s onwards. 

However, the introduction and popularisation of short-form T20 cricket helped the revival of West Indies cricket. After a World Cup trophy-less period of 33 years, they finally lifted one in 2012.

They won the T20 flagship event in 2016 as well and the influx of a bunch of muscular power-hitters with ability to clear the boundaries at will headlined their golden era in this format.

But since Carlos Brathwaite's once-in-a-lifetime act in 2016 that helped them overturn England in the T20 World Cup final, the West Indies have endured tough fortunes across formats. 

They almost missed out on qualification in the 2019 50-over World Cup, won only one game in the 2021 T20 World Cup and failed to qualify for the tournament-proper in 2022 in Australia. 

The next year, they missed the flight to the 2023 ODI World Cup.

But they now have a massive opportunity to bury the ghosts of the last few years and make a statement in the home T20 World Cup where they will start as one of the contenders. 

For many, the West Indies could be a left-field choice for a spot in the semi-final but it won't be surprising if the team led by Rovman Powell and managed by the inspirational Daren Sammy end up becoming a record third-time T20 World Cup champion.

During the current World Cup cycle, the West Indies beat top T20I teams like South Africa, India and England in bilateral series and narrowly lost an away one against Australia. 

The series against Australia was the only one that the West Indies lost since the 2022 T20 World Cup.

It was Sammy's appointment as the white-ball coach in May 2023 that can be marked as the watershed moment in West Indies cricket. 

Sammy famously led the West Indies to two T20 World Cup titles but other international teams have now adopted their high-risk approach which meant they had to refine their method and be spot on in terms of selections and strategy. 

They lost to Ireland and Scotland in the last T20 World Cup in the first round. They missed key players like Andre Russell and Shimron Hetmyer and did not have many late-order hitters. 

Nicholas Pooran, their captain for the tournament and the fulcrum of the batting order, was in horror form, scoring 25 runs at 8.33 with a strike-rate of only 86.2. 

So when Sammy took over, one of his main targets was to bring back some of the key players and make the West Indies a better-ranked team. They were ranked seventh in T20Is at that time. 
 
Fast forward 12 months and Sammy has managed to do what he promised after taking charge. 

He held talks with Russell and Hetmyer amid the constant franchise leagues vs country debate in West Indies cricket and had them back in the team. 

West Indies are now ranked fourth in T20Is and have one of the most feared batting line-ups at the moment. 

Pooran, now without the added pressure of captaincy, has been in the form of his life in T20s.

The southpaw scored 499 runs at 62.4 and struck at 178.2 for Lucknow Super Giants in the recently concluded Indian Premier League (IPL). 

Big-hitting all-rounder Russell returned to the West Indies set-up late last year with a bang.

He smashed 222 runs (strike-rate of 185) and 19 wickets (economy rate of 9.26) for IPL 2024 champions Kolkata Knight Riders.

Left-handed dasher Hetmyer, who missed the last T20 World Cup, has a death-over strike-rate of 196.8 this year.

Captain Powell has also been in prime form, striking at close to 170 since June 2023. 

The biggest advantage for the West Indies this time is that they will play at home where they have not lost a single series in the current World Cup cycle. 

The pitches in the West Indies have aided spin in the past and they have bolstered the spin department with Roston Chase and Gudakesh Motie, the Player of the Series recently against the Proteas.

They will also have a chance to ease into the tournament with two favourable fixtures - against Papua New Guinea and Uganda - before facing New Zealand and Afghanistan.

Sammy knows a thing or two about how to win big tournaments and he has assembled the best possible squad (barring Sunil Narine) and based on current form, it won't be wrong to say the West Indies will go into the home World Cup as one of the favourites.