Chase: 'I'm here to make best decisions for team,' not everyone happy

Roston Chase sits down to talk about the peculiar burden of leading West Indies cricket at a moment when the team is still finding its footing. Two years had passed since he last played Test cricket when the board called him in May 2025 to ask if he would come back—not just as a player, but as captain. He said yes, though he admits he wasn't expecting the offer. Red-ball cricket had always been his first love, even as he'd drifted toward the shorter formats in recent years. Now he plays all three formats for his country, and the weight of that choice sits differently depending on which uniform he's wearing.

The appointment itself was thorough. The Cricket West Indies board put Chase through psychometric testing, interviews with board members, and a written assessment where he answered questions about his leadership philosophy and how he'd handle specific cricket situations. When asked to describe his style, he doesn't soften it: he's calm, sometimes stubborn, but he listens more than he used to. Most importantly, he says plainly, he's not here to make everyone happy. He's here to make the best decisions for the team. That distinction matters, especially in a region where players increasingly prefer the money and stability of T20 leagues around the world over the uncertainty of red-ball cricket. As captain, he works with the squad he's given, not the one he wishes he had.

The first year tested him. West Indies played eight Test matches and won none. The losses came against India, Australia, and New Zealand—teams that expose weaknesses quickly. But captaincy demands that a leader show up not just in words but in performance, and Chase understood that everyone was watching to see if he could deliver. Then came the first Test against Sri Lanka at North Sound, where he scored 194 runs. It was his first century in seven years. More than that, it was a statement. West Indies had been under pressure after Sri Lanka posted 308, and Chase was batting at five with the team at 168 for five. He and Amir Jangoo built a partnership of 401 runs—a record stand—that shifted the entire match. The knock brought confidence back into the dressing room, into the players, into the belief that their captain could lead them forward.

His role shifts with the format. In Tests, he's a batting allrounder, sometimes opening, sometimes batting at four, sometimes dropping to eight depending on what the coach needs. In T20 Internationals on this tour of India, he's a bowling allrounder, a key contributor with the ball on pitches that are nothing like the Caribbean surfaces he knows. The adjustment isn't complicated in theory but demands constant recalibration in practice. He reads the game, reads the scoreboard, and decides what the moment requires. On slower Caribbean pitches, the ball grips more on surfaces that aren't true. In India, the pitches are flat and fast, so he adjusts his lines, varies his pace, maybe bowls a touch quicker or slower depending on what the surface offers. The length stays the same. The principle stays the same. Only the execution changes.

As a bowler, he's developed a reputation for precision. Recently he's been bowling faster—clocking 111.6 kilometers per hour on yorkers—but that's not new; it's always been part of his arsenal. What's changed is his willingness to bowl from around the wicket to right-handed batters, studying each one individually, looking for weaknesses on the leg-stump line, trying to keep the ball in their blind spot or in front of them depending on how they set up and where they like to hit. It's the work of someone who thinks about cricket, who doesn't just execute but understands why.

Personally, he's chasing a ranking. In T20 cricket, he's currently fifth among allrounders in the world. He wants to be number one. Right now, that's difficult because he's playing as a bowling allrounder, which means he only accumulates points for his bowling. To climb back to where he was—number four—he needs to contribute more with the bat, to score runs that win matches. Once he gets there, he believes, the path to number one becomes clearer. It's an ambition that sits alongside his captaincy, neither one separate from the other. Both require him to be at his best, to show up when the team needs him most, to prove that a player who stepped away from Test cricket can come back and lead it forward.