From crisis man to captain under pressure: Chase's most difficult introduction

Roston Chase's appointment as West Indies' Test captain ahead of the 2025-27 World Test Championship in June 2025 came as a surprise. He had not played Test cricket for more than two years.

With their red-ball side in flux and struggling to settle on a combination capable of delivering home or away, Cricket West Indies (CWI) turned to an experienced head to anchor a period of transition. Chase's assignment, though, was never likely to be gentle. His first three series as captain were scheduled to be against Australia at home, followed by away tours of India and New Zealand later in the year. The returns ended up being stark: seven defeats in eight matches, with a solitary draw salvaged in Christchurch.

If West Indies' struggles have been collective, Chase's own numbers have brought them into sharper focus. In 16 innings as captain, he has recorded nine single-digit scores, with a highest of 44 and a batting average under 14. His overall Test average has now dipped below 25. With the ball, as captain, he is conceding close to 71 runs per wicket and bowling more than 17 overs for each dismissal, leaving him as West Indies' lowest-returning batter and among their least effective bowlers in the current WTC cycle.

Five of those nine single-digit scores came during the 0-2 defeat in New Zealand, where Chase also let go of the reputation he once carried as Barbados and West Indies' "crisis man" - the batter who stood firm amid collapses. At the end of the Mount Maunganui Test, he was candid about his own shortcomings.

"Yeah, I think I had a tough series, very below par for my standards," Chase said at the conclusion of the series. "I didn't really lead from the front on the field.

"I thought that leading, in terms of words and encouraging and inspiring the team, that was all good and well. But in terms of going out there and producing for the team and letting the team have someone to look up to as a leader, I thought I let myself down and the team down as well.

"I want to lead both on the field and off the field in terms of encouraging and getting the best out of my players. I want to do that, but I want to go out there and show them that I'm not just talking it, I'm doing it as well and I'm giving my all for the team.

"So, yeah, I was a bit disappointed with my efforts. I thought I got some good balls in the series, but it's Test cricket, so you will get those periods. But I still thought that I could have given some more. I've been working here on some of the deficiencies that the coaches have been seeing in terms of the dismissals. But, yeah, it's always a work in progress."

Batting collapses have been a recurring theme for West Indies across these eight Tests, even as isolated individual efforts have flickered through the tour. Chase, however, drew encouragement from the three centuries scored in New Zealand. Justin Greaves (202*) and Shai Hope (140) batted West Indies into the contest in Christchurch, while Kavem Hodge followed with an unbeaten 123 in Mount Maunganui. Those knocks accounted for three of the five Test hundreds scored by West Indies across the entire year.

"Yeah, I was going to say that because before this series started, the goal for the batters was to at least get a hundred in every game and we got three hundreds. We didn't get one in the last match [in Wellington], but three hundreds over the three-game period [was a positive]," Chase said. "So we were very happy with that. It's something that we've not been able to do in the recent past."

Tactically, Chase felt New Zealand had consistently stayed ahead, particularly in Mount Maunganui. The hosts wore West Indies down by posting 575 for 8 in the first innings, then sensed an opening on the fourth day and accelerated to 306 for 2 at 5.66 runs per over in their third innings. That approach left enough time to exploit a pitch that deteriorated rapidly, as Jacob Duffy's five-wicket haul and Ajaz Patel's support ripped through West Indies, who were bowled out for 138 after reaching 87 without loss.

"As I said, disappointed," Chase said. "We really wanted to get a win here for the first time since 1995. That was the ultimate goal for the team, and we fell short.

"We thought it would have spun, but we didn't look for it to deteriorate as much as it did with the cracks and the uneven bumps and stuff. Because after the first day, we could see a lot of green coming off of the wicket, unlike the other wickets where it was green for a longer period. We thought that this wicket got brown very, very fast."

West Indies' next chance to earn WTC points will not come until Chase turns 34. In June-July 2026, Sri Lanka tour the Caribbean for a multi-format series. West Indies will then play home Tests against Pakistan in July-August and a two-Test tour of Bangladesh in November. That means they are scheduled to play just six Tests for the entirely of 2026.