CaribbeanCricket.com – The independent voice of West Indian cricket

Fri 26 Dec ’25 by KRISSANIA YOUNG

Chris Dehring, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Cricket West Indies, expects that regional cricket’s attempt to adapt to inevitable shifts in the sport’s ecosystem will lead to a decline in the frequency with which teams such as the Leeward Islands and Windward Islands compete as multinational teams. Dehring stressed that the introduction of cricket to the Pan American Games and its reintroduction to the Olympic Games, where only sovereign nations can compete, will see an increase in the number of matches contested by individual territories.

“If you think about the Pan American Games qualifiers and the Olympic Games qualifiers every two years, you see a different cadence of cricket happening in the Caribbean over the next five, 10, 15 or 20 years,” Dehring told the newspaper. Mason and guest panel.

“And of course individual countries will be playing in those tournaments. So it won’t necessarily be Leewards and Windwards. It will be St. Vincent, Dominica, Antigua, Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago competing to now qualify for a bigger prize.”

However, he emphasizes that the changing events should not be feared, but rather embraced. Dehring hopes that the inherent nationalism associated with participating in these tournaments will encourage regional governments to put more resources into the sport.

“It’s one of the challenges of West Indian cricket because there is no such country called the West Indies. And so [with the] If West Indies win, we all feel good,” he said. ‘But individual countries and governments don’t feel like they’re getting, I think, the political goodwill that comes from that.

“And that’s why it’s harder for them to invest in national programs like the under-13s and under-15s, where national resources have to be deployed for the development of those youth. Not cricket resources from the West Indies, but national resources.”

The CWI has openly admitted all year that it was in financial difficulties. And Dehring has once again highlighted the disparity in the International Cricket Council’s revenue share. “We can only look at it [get] income from international tours and of course from the ICC,” he began. “And the world has said – I don’t need to repeat it – that it’s just an unfair distribution given the contribution that the West Indies have made to world cricket, given the special circumstances (multiple areas) that we have here.”

The West Indies receives 4.58% of revenue under the ICC’s current distribution model. They are one of eight full member states to receive less than 5%, with India retaining the lion’s share (38.50%), followed by England (6.89%) and Australia (6.25%).

Now that CWI has limited earning potential, they appear to have settled for accepting fruitful security.

“Franchise cricket is on the rise, which is decimating television rights for bilateral series,” Dehring said. “So there will be a restructuring, a re-engineering of the world of cricket, and West Indian cricket will have to adapt. We will have to find our own way through the new world. We have to be as flexible as possible to gain advantages where we can and survive where we must.”