Who Leads the Leeward’s Batting?
March 25th, 2023. It was the final day of the fourth round of the West Indies Championship, and the Leeward Islands were playing the Windward Islands at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy. Whether he knew it or not, this was an important day for Montcin Hodge.
After rescuing themselves from 121/6 to 382/9 declared, and then getting a first-innings lead of 29, the Leewards were in trouble at 99/5. Debutant Karima Gore was last out, trapped LBW with the final ball of the previous day.
On the morning of March 25th, long-standing opener Montcin Hodge was still there on a defiant 45, joined at the crease by Kofi James. James, playing only his fifth first-class game, had been promoted a spot after his century in the first innings. With only the tail to come after James, Hodge farms the strike. He knows the chances of setting a decent target rest on him. Over the next five overs, the pair put on 15 more runs, with Hodge scoring 14 of them and reaching his half-century before he too was trapped LBW. James held out for 31 balls before being dismissed for 12, and the Leewards were bowled out for 144. The Windwards rattled off the 174 runs required in under 40 overs to secure victory.
This was Hodge’s last game for the Leeward Islands. The 35-year-old had played 95 games over a 15-year first-class career, and he signed off in his typical style. His gritty 59 off 133 balls showed that, despite his limited batting ability, he could make it difficult for opposing teams to get him out.
Hodge’s approach epitomised Leeward batting at the time. Lacking natural talent in the top order, Hodge set the tone by putting a price on his wicket, which others down the order would follow. Meanwhile, fellow opener Keiran Powell would go on the attack and put pressure on the opposition. In Hodge’s final game, Powell hit 75 off 105 balls, Gore scored 93 off 198 balls, James scored 107 off 248 balls, and Jeremiah Louis, batting at 9, scored 45 off 70. Their combined grit had rescued the team from the earlier position of 121/6. While Leewards weren’t a good side, they weren’t easy to beat either and had made Windwards work for their victory.
For the final match of the 2023 Championship against Guyana, the Leewards looked well on course at 96/1 chasing 143 to win, but then completely collapsed to 125 all out. Powell made 61 of them. Hodge’s replacement for the game, Larry Audain, scored 0 and 12, and has not played another regional game since.
It was also to be the final match for another Leeward Islands stalwart, albeit for very different reasons. Devon Thomas had a poor game, scoring 2 and 0. Soon afterwards, the 33-year-old was suspended for match-fixing by the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit and banned for five years, casting a dark cloud over his 105 first-class career games.
With Hodge and Thomas now gone, it was time for change. Mikyle Louis came in to fill Hodge’s spot, opening with the now 34-year-old Powell. Keacy Carty, who had topped the averages the previous season, was now a regular starter. Justin Greaves, who had played for the Windwards in Hodge’s final game, was now in the Leeward Islands’ set-up. And most excitingly, the potentially generational talent of 17-year-old Jewel Andrew was in the squad.
Fast-forward to the Leeward’s first game of the 2024 WI Championship against West Indies Academy. Carty and Greaves were away in Australia with the national side. Andrew was away at the Under-19s World Cup, and Powell was out injured. Leewards had to form a makeshift top order of Louis, Joshua Grant, James, and Gore. This was a top order with a grand total of seven first-class games between them, and with openers who were both making their senior debuts. The most experienced batter was Jahmar Hamilton, promoted from seven to five to help shore up the batting. Compared to Hodge’s final game, where the top four had collectively played over 350 first-class games and 45 tests between them, this was quite a step down.
The Academy, on their debut in the WI Championship, won the toss, elected to field, and quickly reduced Leewards to 10/3 as Grant and James both fell for 0 and Louis for 9. Leewards struggled to 137 all out and were eventually beaten by 5 wickets. Leadership and experience had been sorely missed. For the next game against Guyana, Carty returned to replace Grant, and Gore made way for the hotly anticipated debut of Andrew in red-ball cricket. Andrew’s first senior red-ball innings was memorable for all the wrong reasons as the youngster was out first ball.
Fortunately for Leewards, Guyana were still missing players from the Australia tour, and Mikyle Louis was on fire, hitting centuries in both innings to carry them to a 273-run victory. It was to be Guyana’s only defeat of the season, as with their full-strength team, they went on to win the Championship.
The thumping win and Louis’ two centuries belied the problems within the Leeward Islands’ batting card. Other than Louis, only Hamilton and Rakheem Cornwall scored above 35 in both innings. Those two players are capable, experienced batters, but they are not in the side to bat. Batting experience was still lacking, and the result only papered over the cracks.
The return of Powell to open the batting gave them that experience. Now, the inexperienced batters had someone to look to in the dressing room for guidance, as Powell could lead from the front.
After Powell’s return, the Leeward batters racked up three centuries and seventeen half-centuries between them across the remaining five games. Carty was the main beneficiary, scoring a century and five half-centuries. The 2024 WI Championship wasn’t a vintage season by Powell's standards, but he made a century, two half-centuries, and finished with an average of 32.40. Leewards lost only one of those five games, against Barbados, largely down to a score of 189 from Kraigg Brathwaite.
Fast-forward now to the 2025 WI Championship, where Leewards ended their season in fourth place after a final-round defeat against Barbados. Powell had left, spending the season in the Combined Campuses and Colleges set-up. Louis, Carty, and Greaves, meanwhile, had spent most of the last twelve months in the West Indies test squad discovering the harsh realities of playing at the highest level.
A positive 2025 WI Championship, helped by the more batting-friendly Kookaburra ball for the first few rounds, would have given them a good chance of securing their spots for the Australia series. However, Leeward batting largely went backwards at this year’s championship. The number of centuries stayed the same at 5, but the total number of half-centuries fell from 21 to 20. And when we look at the stats in more detail, the picture looks worse.
The WI test trio of Louis, Carty, and Greaves all averaged less than they did in the previous championship. Carty, especially, had an awful tournament, with only two scores above 50. Wicketkeeper Jahmar Hamilton topped both the Leewards’ runs and batting average tables, despite spending most of the season batting at six or seven.
The other worrying metric was the number of balls faced by each batter. Louis averaged 68 balls faced per innings, 31 fewer than his breakout championship last year. Carty faced an average of 60 balls per innings, 19 fewer than last year. Greaves, to his credit, improved on last year, with 90 balls on average per innings, but in the wake of this championship, it would be difficult to say that any of these players are guaranteed selection for Australia.
Without Powell opening for them this year, the Leewards looked like a team of talented individuals who still have a lot to learn. Many of the current batters would benefit from studying the situational awareness of Powell and learning how to grind it out like Hodge. Powell and Hodge are unlikely to be regarded as legends of cricket outside their home islands, but together, they showed what can be achieved with application, along with the key red-ball skills of building batting time, putting a price on your wicket, knowing when to attack and defend, and knowing when to farm the strike.
Hodge could go 10+ game seasons facing an average of 100+ balls an innings, while Louis, Carty and Greaves aren’t able to average facing more than 90 in half the number of games. Being able to survive only 90 balls an innings is barely enough to last a single session, never mind the two or three sessions West Indies will need batters to survive if they’re to stand a chance against Australia.
Powell’s test career average of 25.76 is not stellar by international standards, but compared to Louis’ 19.88, Carty’s 17.90, and Greaves' 21.00, it looks colossal. Kieran Powell is not the player he once was, and he had a very poor season at CCC, but while he is an aggressive batter, he’s not nearly as reckless as the trio of internationals currently fighting for their place in the West Indies test side.
And this brings us back to Jewel Andrew. He has improved his average this season and scored his first domestic century. However, he’s still averaging less than 50 balls an innings, which is a metric he has gone backwards in this year. There are skills he needs to learn to fulfil his potential as a world-class batter, and time is on his side to learn them. But, in the Leeward Islands at least, there isn’t anyone who can teach them to him.
Thank you to Osprey for his debut article.
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