Heavy is the head that wears the title of West Indies head coach. The job is among the most scrutinised in cricket, with fans of various nationalities, backgrounds, and levels of sporting knowledge all sharing their opinions on the work being done by the leader of the maroon-clad pack. Since 2023, Daren Sammy has been the man tasked with this responsibility in white-ball cricket – One Day Internationals and T20 Internationals.
Sammy is a three-time ICC Trophy winner, a two-time T20 World Cup-winning captain, and a one-time Pakistan Super League and Republic Bank Caribbean Premier League championship-winning coach. In December 2024, he was appointed West Indies head coach across all formats, with his tenure over the Test team officially beginning in April 2025.
But could these accomplishments be dampened if the West Indies fail to make significant waves at the ongoing T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka?
Since his rise to head coach of the Men in Maroon, Sammy has at the very least ensured that the West Indies participated in the one T20 World Cup they had to qualify for (the West Indies qualified for the 2024 tournament as co-hosts). Prior to his arrival, the team had to endure the embarrassment of missing the most recent ICC 50-over World Cup (2023) and the ICC Champions Trophy (2025), where they failed to qualify.
Sammy’s decision to return to West Indies cricket itself has a timeline worth noting. One could reference a fiery post-World Cup victory interview in 2016, broadcast live, where the then-captain called out what he deemed a “disappointing” reception from the Dave Cameron-led board, effectively ending not only his captaincy, but his international cricket career as well.
His decision to don the maroon coaching hat despite these past challenges (albeit under a different regime) showcases his undoubted commitment to the development of his sport of choice, and the region in general.
However, criticism of the Dugard, Micoud native’s recent output as head coach is not without merit. Since the 2024 T20 World Cup in the Caribbean, the West Indies T20 team has lost a total of nine bilateral series and won only two. Among those losses was a shocking upset series defeat to Nepal, albeit against a weakened Windies setup.
The performances led to Cricket West Indies president Kishore Shallow’s recent public admission that the team’s overall results under Sammy were “below par” and that Sammy shares collective responsibility for West Indies’ disappointing 2025 performances. This has been interpreted as a more measured critique, acknowledging the head coach’s role in poor results.
But how can the World Cup turn things around for the head coach? For starters, former West Indies fast bowler and legendary commentator Ian Bishop believes that Sammy’s performance as West Indies head coach is likely to be judged heavily on how the team performs in the current tournament. He stressed that while Sammy has faced difficult series in the lead-up, including against top teams like Australia, India, and New Zealand, he must come good for the ongoing World Cup.
“From a white ball point of view, the real proof is going to be the T20 World Cup [this year],” Bishop said. “That is a team that has a lot of potential from a batting point of view, if not from a bowling point of view, and so what are we going to judge him by? And I think it’s going to rest heavily on the white-ball component of the game that will come up in the next two months.”
Sammy himself underscored the reality that the team faced an uphill battle, based on public perception of their performance. However, he is confident that the talent and execution of his players will carry them to victory.
In a pre-tournament press conference, the head coach said: “It feels like the same scenario 10 years ago, where everything that was against us, nobody gave us a chance. And I’m looking at the guys and the caliber of talent that we have in that dressing room. If we go out and they execute with both ball and bat and also in the field, we’re in it to win it.”
Sammy and other Windies coaches in the 21st century are in many ways not merely in a battle with the opposition on the field, but in a battle with the legacy of West Indies cricket, which has not lived up to its true potential in recent years. With a team of talented potential world-beaters in the current tournament squad, the Saint Lucian will need to inspire greatness from his team if they have any chance of ending a decade-long drought for a title at ICC tournaments.
