Sports
Roneil Walcott
WEST INDIES batting legend Sir Vivian Richards has given the Windies team his full support ahead of this year’s International Cricket Council (ICC) men’s Twenty/20 World Cup, and he believes they have the necessary tools to lift an unprecedented third T20 World Cup title.
Richards, who is renowned as one of West Indies’ and world cricket’s greatest ever batsmen, was a member of the then-dominant Caribbean team which stormed to back-to-back World Cup titles in 1975 and 1979.
Nearly half-a-century after his match-winning century at the famed Lord’s Cricket Ground against hosts England in the 1979 finale, Richards is putting his money on coach Daren Sammy’s West Indies team to ascend to T20 World Cup supremacy when the June 1-29 tournament concludes at the Kensington Oval in Barbados.
“As I look ahead to the matches, I’m backing my West Indies team to deliver on the big day. We have a very good team, and they look united under captain Rovman Powell,” said Richards, during the Antigua and Barbuda leg of the T20 World Cup trophy tour last week.
“I’m throwing my full support behind my team. It would be great to win this ICC men’s T20 World Cup on our home soil.”
The Windies, who copped T20 titles in 2012 and 2016 under the shrewd captaincy of Sammy, are aiming to get back to the peak of the world T20 game after unconvincing performances in the last two editions of the tournament.
In the defence of their 2016 title at the 2021 T20 World Cup, a Kieron Pollard-led West Indies team crashed to a group stage exit after getting the solitary win in five matches. A year later, under the captaincy of Nicholas Pooran, the Windies team failed to make it to the main draw of the T20 World Cup after finishing bottom of a qualifying group that included Ireland, Scotland and Zimbabwe.
In 2023, Powell’s Windies squad won three straight T20 international series, inclusive of 3-2 series victories against top-ranked India and reigning world champions England. Earlier this year, the regional team had their streak of series wins ended when they fell to a 2-1 loss away to Australia.
The West Indies are joint-hosts with the US for the record 20-team 2024 T20 World Cup, and they have been placed alongside Afghanistan, New Zealand, Uganda and Papua New Guinea (PNG) in group C for this year’s showpiece tournament. The Windies begin their quest for a third T20 title when they face PNG and newcomers Uganda in their opening group matches in Guyana on June 2 and 8 respectively.
Sammy’s troops will then end the group stage with arguably their two toughest matches when they meet the fourth-ranked New Zealand and the tenth-ranked Afghanistan teams on June 12 and 17 respectively.
The top two teams in each of the four groups will advance to the Super Eight phase of the tournament, before the subsequent semifinals and final are contested.
If Richards has his way, the seventh-ranked West Indies team will be having a massive party after securing another T20 crown.
“We won twice before …those were way (in Sri Lanka in 2012 and India in 2016), so a third title would be great, and where better, than at home in front of our great West Indian fans to celebrate,” the West Indies batting great said via a Cricket West Indies (CWI) release.
Antigua’s trophy tour included stops at Heritage Quay, Nelson Dockyard, the Antigua Recreation Ground, Shirley Heights and the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium. Richards was accompanied on the trophy tour by fellow Windies greats Curtly Ambrose, Richie Richardson and Andy Roberts.
