While women have long made their mark on the field, a new era of rep­re­sen­ta­tion is tak­ing hold in the com­men­tary booth—a space tra­di­tion­al­ly dom­i­nat­ed by men. Glob­al­ly, the rise of trail­blaz­ers like Isa Guha, Mel Jones, and Al­i­son Mitchell has proven that fe­male ex­per­tise is a nec­es­sary evo­lu­tion, bring­ing tech­ni­cal depth and fresh cul­tur­al lens­es to the sport. In the Caribbean, this shift is par­tic­u­lar­ly res­o­nant, as for­mer play­er Sta­cy-Ann King has tran­si­tioned from in­ter­na­tion­al play to com­men­tary, pro­vid­ing in­sight­ful analy­sis in the tra­di­tion of pi­o­neer Don­na Sym­monds.

To­day, we chat with Sta­cy-Ann Adams, an emerg­ing voice from St Vin­cent and the Grenadines [SVG], to get her sto­ry as a fe­male crick­et com­men­ta­tor.

Q: Could you tell us a bit about your­self and where your jour­ney be­gan?

A: I grew up in a small vil­lage called Ceme­tery Hill in St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines. I am cur­rent­ly read­ing for a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence de­gree in Sport Lead­er­ship (ma­jor) and Fa­cil­i­ties Man­age­ment (mi­nor) at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Glob­al Cam­pus. Pro­fes­sion­al­ly, I am a cus­toms of­fi­cer, and I am the chair­per­son of the Wind­ward Is­lands women’s crick­et se­lec­tion pan­el.

As far as my in­ter­ests go, it has al­ways just been crick­et. Crick­et was nev­er a big part of my house­hold, but my aunt would be the on­ly one watch­ing crick­et and I fell in love with it from see­ing how pas­sion­ate she got when West In­dies were play­ing. Af­ter watch­ing, I al­ways felt the urge to play. To high­light how in­vest­ed I be­came in the sport, if the ball was struck in­to the ceme­tery, I would find my­self look­ing tire­less­ly through a moun­tain of grass and be­tween tombs to find the ball to car­ry on the game. That love for the game has car­ried me in­to dif­fer­ent roles I now play in crick­et in­clud­ing com­men­tary.

Did you play or have you played any oth­er sports com­pet­i­tive­ly?

Yes, I have on­ly played crick­et com­pet­i­tive­ly. It’s a bit of a fun­ny sto­ry; grow­ing up, I was al­ways ath­let­ic and drawn to crick­et, but I didn’t know there was or­gan­ised crick­et train­ing in SVG, but I just knew I had to chan­nel that ath­leti­cism some­where. So, I ac­tu­al­ly tried out for the na­tion­al foot­ball team. I at­tend­ed one tri­al ses­sion, but short­ly af­ter, I heard that some­one named Cle­ton Bur­nette was seek­ing fe­male crick­eters. I found him and from that point, it was on­ly crick­et for me.

I rep­re­sent­ed and cap­tained the SVG team for a num­ber of years, lead­ing them to two Wind­ward Is­lands ti­tles in 2018 and 2019. I was al­so called for an as­sess­ment for the West In­dies team in late 2015, but due to lo­gis­ti­cal is­sues, that op­por­tu­ni­ty nev­er ma­te­ri­alised. How­ev­er, I’ve al­ways been grate­ful just to be in­volved in crick­et in any ca­pac­i­ty.

How did you tran­si­tion in­to crick­et com­men­tary?

Com­men­tary start­ed quite un­ex­pect­ed­ly for me. If you had asked me ten years ago if I could see my­self do­ing com­men­tary, the an­swer would have been a con­fi­dent “no, nev­er.” I have nev­er been one for pub­lic speak­ing or be­ing in the spot­light. In 2020, that all changed; the or­gan­is­ers of the Vin­cy Pre­mier League con­tact­ed me be­cause they want­ed a fe­male voice. I al­ways at­tend­ed the tour­na­ment as a spec­ta­tor, so be­ing ap­proached took me by sur­prise.

To be hon­est, I was close to turn­ing it down be­cause I didn’t think it was some­thing I could do. But I took a mo­ment and told my­self it could on­ly go one of two ways and I would nev­er know un­less I stepped out of my com­fort zone. So, I took the chance, and that’s how it all be­gun. To this day, I al­ways re­flect on that mo­ment of be­ing asked, and so would al­ways be thank­ful to the or­gan­is­ers of that tour­na­ment for tak­ing a chance on me.

What is your ex­pe­ri­ence as a com­men­ta­tor?

As men­tioned, the Vin­cy Pre­mier League was my de­but mo­ment in com­men­tary. Build­ing on that, I went on to cov­er West In­dies re­gion­al tour­na­ments host­ed in SVG over the past five years. My first struc­tured broad­cast en­vi­ron­ment came dur­ing the men’s re­gion­al Su­per 50 last year [2025]. More re­cent­ly, I made my in­ter­na­tion­al de­but cov­er­ing the West In­dies Women’s se­ries against Sri Lan­ka and Aus­tralia.

My ex­pe­ri­ence so far has been quite en­rich­ing and a con­tin­u­ous learn­ing jour­ney. No mat­ter how well-ad­just­ed you are to a com­men­tary en­vi­ron­ment, there will al­ways be nerves, and you have to learn how to man­age them while still stay­ing present in the mo­ment. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, you have to ad­just to what it is like work­ing in a pro­fes­sion­al pro­duc­tion set­up and re­main mind­ful of com­men­tary eti­quette and flow.

Over time, I’ve learned to turn set­backs in­to growth. Where I re­flect, ad­just and move on, be­cause life keeps mov­ing. I’ve al­so been for­tu­nate to work with a great group of com­men­ta­tors, who have so far shared their knowl­edge of broad­cast­ing with me. I am gen­uine­ly grate­ful for that. One of the things that has stayed with me from one com­men­ta­tor re­cent­ly is the re­minder to sim­ply “give your­self grace”, and not be too hard on your­self as you con­tin­ue to learn and de­vel­op.

What are your plans for the fu­ture as a com­men­ta­tor?

Sta­cy-Ann Adams: It is about con­tin­u­ing to earn op­por­tu­ni­ties through prepa­ra­tion and im­prove­ment. This is not some­thing I nec­es­sar­i­ly en­vi­sioned a few years ago, but it has be­come the path I am com­mit­ted to pur­su­ing and hope to con­tin­ue to grow with­in it per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly.

Sta­cy-Ann Adam’s jour­ney from the “Ceme­tery Hill” grounds to the in­ter­na­tion­al broad­cast booth em­bod­ies the new era of crick­et where fe­male par­tic­i­pa­tion goes be­yond the bound­ary. It al­so re­in­forces the im­por­tance of grab­bing op­por­tu­ni­ties when pre­sent­ed.