The West Indies men's cricket team, nicknamed The Windies, is a men's cricket team representing the mainly English-speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean region and administered by Cricket West Indies. The players on this composite team are selected from a chain of fifteen Caribbean nation-states and territories. , the West Indies cricket team is ranked eighth in Tests, and tenth in ODIs and seventh in T20Is in the official ICC rankings.
From the mid-late 1970s to the early 1990s, the West Indies team was the strongest in the world in both Test and One Day International cricket. A number of cricketers who were considered among the best in the world have hailed from the West Indies: Garfield Sobers, Lance Gibbs, George Headley, Brian Lara, Vivian Richards, Clive Lloyd, Malcolm Marshall, Alvin Kallicharran, Andy Roberts, Rohan Kanhai, Frank Worrell, Gordon Greenidge, Clyde Walcott, Everton Weekes, Curtly Ambrose, Desmond Haynes, Michael Holding, Courtney Walsh, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Joel Garner and Wes Hall have all been inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
The West Indies have won the ICC Cricket World Cup twice (1975 and 1979, when it was styled the Prudential Cup), the ICC T20 World Cup twice (2012 and 2016, when it was styled World Twenty20), the ICC Champions Trophy once (2004), the ICC Under 19 Cricket World Cup once (2016), and have also finished as runners-up in the Cricket World Cup (1983), the Under 19 Cricket World Cup (2004), and the ICC Champions Trophy (2006). The West Indies appeared in three consecutive World Cup finals (1975, 1979 and 1983), and were the first team to win back-to-back World Cups (1975 and 1979), both of these records have been surpassed only by Australia, who appeared in 4 consecutive World Cup Finals (1996, 1999, 2003 and 2007) winning 3 consecutive World Cups (1999, 2003 and 2007).
The West Indies have hosted the 2007 Cricket World Cup and the 2010 ICC World Twenty20.
Member states and dependencies
The current team represents:
Sovereign states
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W
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Constituent country of the
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Overseas Territories of the
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Territory of the
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Note
Affiliates in Cricket West Indies
Cricket West Indies, the governing body of the team, consists of the six cricket associations of Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, the Leeward Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Windward Islands. The Leeward Islands Cricket Association consists of three cricket associations from two sovereign states (one from Antigua and Barbuda, and two from Saint Kitts and Nevis), three British Overseas Territories (Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, and Montserrat), one U.S. territory (the U.S. Virgin Islands), and one Dutch constituent country (Sint Maarten). The Windward Islands Cricket Board of Control consists of associations of four sovereign states (Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines).
Two more British Overseas Territories in the region that have once been historical parts of the former West Indies Federation, the Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands, have their own national teams currently.
National teams also exist for the various islands, which, as they are all separate countries, very much keep their local identities and support their local favourites. These national teams take part in the West Indian first-class competition, the Regional Four Day Competition (earlier known as the Busta Cup, Shell Shield, Carib Beer Cup, and various other names). It is also common for other international teams to play the island teams for warm-up games before they take on the combined West Indies team.
The combined population of these countries and territories is around 6 million people, comparable to fellow Full Members New Zealand and Ireland, and prominent Associate Member Scotland.
The member associations of Cricket West Indies are: