From the mid 1970s to the early 1990s, the West Indies team was one of the strongest in the world in both Test and One Day International cricket. A number of cricketers considered among the best in the world have hailed from the West Indies; Sir Garfield Sobers, Lance Gibbs, Gordon Greenidge, George Headley, Clive Lloyd, Malcolm Marshall, Andy Roberts, Alvin Kallicharran, Rohan Kanhai and Everton Weekes have all been inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame, while world-record holders Brian Lara and Sir Viv Richards were both West Indies Test players. As of 19 June 2009, the West Indian team has played 457 Test matches, winning 33.26%, losing 32.38% and drawing 34.13% of its games.
The West Indies have won the ICC Cricket World Cup twice in 1975 and 1979, the ICC Champions Trophy once in 2004 and have been runners up in the Under 19 Cricket World Cup in 2004 and have been semi finalist in the ICC World Twenty20 in 2009. First cricket team to win World Cup twice, surpassed by 4 World Cup wins by Australia. West Indies are also the first team to win back to back World Cups, since surpassed by 3 consecutive World Cup wins by Australia.
When playing one-day cricket, the Windies wear a maroon shirt, with grey around the sides. The shirt also sports the logo of the West Indian Cricket Board and the name of their sponsors, at present, Digicel. The one-day cap is maroon with the WICB logo on the left of the front, with two yellow stripes separated by a green stripe running vertically on the right of the front.
When playing first-class cricket, in addition to their cricket whites, West Indian fielders sometimes wear a sunhat, which is maroon and has a wide brim. The WICB logo is on the middle of the front of the hat. Helmets are coloured similarly.
During World Series Cricket, colour uniforms were adopted. The initial West Indies uniform was pink. Later, the uniform was changed to maroon to match their Test match caps. Grey was also added as a secondary colour. In some of their uniforms grey has been dominant over the traditional maroon.
The West Indian women's cricket team has a much lower profile than the men's team. They played 11 Test matches between 1975–76 and 1979, winning once, losing three times, and drawing the other games. Since then, they have only played one further Test match, a draw game against Pakistan in 2003-04. They also have an infrequent record in One Day Internationals. A team from Trinidad and Tobago and a team from Jamaica played in the first women's World Cup in 1973, with both sides faring poorly, finishing fifth and sixth respectively out of a field of seven. The Windies united as a team to play their first ODI in 1979, but thereafter did not play until the 1993 World Cup. The side has never been one of the leading sides in the world, however, with their main success being achieving second place in the International Women's Cricket Council Trophy, a competition for the second tier of women's national cricket teams, in 2003. They finished in fifth place in the most recent World Cup, which was held in 2004-05. Their overall record in one-dayers is to have played 45, won 17, lost 27 with one no result.
Because of the women's side's relatively low profile, there are few well-known names in the game. The most notable is probably Nadine George, a wicket-keeper/batsman, who became the first, and to date only, West Indian woman to score a Test century, in Karachi, Pakistan in 2003-04. George is a prominent supporter of sport in the West Indies, and in particular in her native St Lucia, and in 2005 was made an MBE by HRH The Prince of Wales for services to sport.
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