Badree "disheartened" with Windies' T20 World Cup exit

WEST Indies two-time T20 World Cup winner Samuel Badree is “disheartened” the Caribbean team were unable to advance to this year’s semi-finals, which bowls off at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Tarouba on June 26 from 8.30 pm.

Badree expressed his disappointment with the team’s exit during his feature address at the 2024 Secondary Schools Cricket League awards at Signature Hall in Chaguanas on June 25.

West Indies were eliminated from this year’s tournament after losing their final Super Eight group two match against South Africa on June 23. A win would have put them through to the semi-finals.

Badree, who was part of the regional team who won the title in 2012 and 2016, is on the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) commentary team for the T20 World Cup, and was on-hand to witness his former team’s exit.

Badree said an “indescribable” feeling swept over him every time veteran calypsonian David Rudder sang the region’s anthem “Rally Round the West Indies” before each match in Trinidad.

That feeling, he said, brought a “renewed and reinvigorated passion for cricket in the region.”

“I do not think that we should allow this passion and resignation to slide but must fully utilise this opportunity despite the result on the field...I know many of us are still recuperating from that.

“I know I am very disheartened but that’s the nature of sport, and so we look to support someone else. Afghanistan perhaps, with Dwayne Bravo (bowling coach). England, as Kieron Pollard (assistant coach) is part of their staff or India, who haven’t won the title in so many years.”

The second semifinal between defending champions England and India gets under way at Providence Stadium in Guyana on June 27, from 10.30 am.