Money woes for Cricket West Indies, cut-back on regional teams, tourneys

In a move which is expected to help save the organisation money in the long-run, Cricket West Indies (CWI) said it will be reducing the number of tournaments and consequently the number of teams participating in regional competitions for the 2025/26 season.

At CWI's quarterly press conference in Antigua on October 1, CWI president Dr Kishore Shallow described the cricket body's financial standing as a chronic one, and he, CWI CEO Chris Dehring and director of cricket Miles Bascombe said the board is doing its best to work alongside regional and international partners to ensure a boost in revenue while maintaining the vision of CWI's strategic plan for 2024-2027.

The CWI officials confirmed that the boys' regional Under-17 tournament for the 2026 season will be scrapped, while the women's regional T20 and 50-over tournaments will be merged into one competition and is expected to be hosted ahead of the West Indies' women's series against Sri Lanka in February. Also, on the men's side, Bascombe disclosed that the Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC) and the West Indies Academy cricket teams will most likely be pulled from the regional tournaments in the upcoming season.

Still, the CWI officials said they are set to host over 33 events next year, with the boys' Under-19 regional tourney to be extended to give way for talented Under-17 players to make the step up in a higher and presumably more challenging age group.

"The CEO and president spoke to the financial challenges we'll face in 2025 and 2026. As a result, the cricket department was tasked with ensuring our tournaments help our counterparts in finance to meet their objectives as well as ours," Bascombe said.

"We will see a reduction in many cases in the number of matches across tournaments. Unfortunately, we are likely to see the CCC and the West Indies Academy withdrawn from our West Indies Four-Day Championships and Super50 tournaments."

Bascombe said the non-participation of the two teams should not hinder the development of the players who are mostly made up of young, up-and-coming cricketers. Instead, he said this will encourage these players to return to their respective territorial teams and compete for first-time selection, thus improving the overall standard and level of competitiveness in these tournaments in his eyes.

For the financial year of 2024, CWI recorded a total revenue of US$88.4 million, a 42 per cent increase from the US$62.3 million which it raked in for 2023. The 2024 revenue was largely boosted by the joint-hosting of the 2024 International Cricket Council T20 World Cup which accounted for 44 per cent of last year's overall revenue.

However, Dehring said the "cash reserves gained from the Cricket World Cup are gone" and the board has now had to undertake "significant changes because we simply don't have the cash."

The CWI CEO said, "it's going to be a challenging 2025/26. Hosting Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Pakistan comes with a financial price. It's a price we have to pay to keep our seat at the ICC table."

Dehring said the revenue gained by hosting the "Big 3" of England, India and Australia is tremendous. However, on the flip side, he said the benefits aren't as favourable when the regional team hosts some of their other international counterparts. And with the Windies to host Pakistan for two Tests next year, to go along with a six-game white-ball series against the Kiwis and an all-format series against the Sri Lankans, he said CWI will have to explore non-traditional ways of generating revenue.

Dehring described the upcoming season as one where CWI will be "pumping the brakes."

The CWI CEO outlined four main areas for the regional cricket body to try and increase their cash flow which include: lobbying the ICC to restructure its current financial model; getting more hands-on involvement from Caricom's Prime Ministerial Sub-committee on cricket and the respective regional governments; greater corporate investment and what Dehring termed the re-engineering of Windies cricket.

Dehring said "the world almost owes us to reinvest in us," disclosing that the legendary trio of Brian Lara, Richie Richardson and Vivian Richards have volunteered their services to go to India to meet with with broadcasters and potential sponsors to promote the Windies brand and more importantly, persuade them to purchase the regional team's broadcast rights. West Indies will play India in a two-Test series from October 2-14.

Board of directors put recommendations into motion

On September 25, Bascombe said CWI got approvals for a number of initiatives after a board meeting. After the West Indies were bowled out for 27 in the second innings of the third and final Test against Australia in July, an emergency two-day summit was convened by Dr Shallow at the Hyatt Regency in Trinidad from August 10-11. Coming out of that emergency meeting, Bascombe said the board has now got the approval to recruit a batting coach/consultant (ideally on a full-time basis), recruit full-time performance coaches and sport psychologists who will be embedded in the senior teams and to establish a high performance centre at Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua.

Bascombe said the latter should be a state of the art facility with indoor nets, a gym and recovery centre. He said plans are under way to bring this into fruition. He said the board has now given the cricket strategy and officiating committee the approval to form smaller working groups to refine these recommendations, while the goal is also to establish a national cricket development framework. Additionally, Bascombe said there will need to be another review of the regional franchise system to see how it can best serve the Caribbean game.