ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – For the first time in its crick­et­ing his­to­ry, the West In­dies will take on emerg­ing na­tion Nepal in a bi­lat­er­al se­ries lat­er this year.

The an­nounce­ment was made by Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) on Thurs­day, which dis­closed that the re­gion­al side will clash with Nepal in three T20Is in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates from Sep­tem­ber 27 to 30.

The se­ries is be­ing host­ed by the Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion of Nepal (CAN) and will serve as prepa­ra­tion for Nepal as they gear up for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Asia Qual­i­fi­er to be held in Oc­to­ber.

Even though Nepal is cur­rent­ly ranked 18th in the ICC’s T20I rank­ings – 13 places be­low the West In­dies – the West In­dies is still ex­pect­ed to field a com­pet­i­tive squad that will of­fer Nepal crit­i­cal ex­po­sure ahead of their World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign.

Ac­cord­ing to CWI, the en­gage­ment re­flects its strong com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing the de­vel­op­ment of crick­et in emerg­ing na­tions and fos­ter­ing mean­ing­ful part­ner­ships with fel­low crick­et­ing boards world­wide.

CWI’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Chris Dehring main­tained that it was part of the West In­dies’ re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to as­sist in the sport’s de­vel­op­ment in what­ev­er way it could.

“This se­ries is more than just a set of in­ter­na­tion­al match­es—it’s a cel­e­bra­tion of the game’s ex­pand­ing glob­al foot­print and a tes­ta­ment to what crick­et rep­re­sents: pride, pur­pose, and the pow­er of uni­ty.

“As a full-mem­ber na­tion, we see it as part of our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to con­tribute to the de­vel­op­ment of crick­et be­yond our bor­ders,” Dehring said.

“Sup­port­ing Nepal in this key phase of their crick­et­ing jour­ney not on­ly builds the sport at the grass­roots and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­els, but al­so re­minds us of the deep pride and ho­n­our as­so­ci­at­ed with rep­re­sent­ing our na­tion and wear­ing our na­tion­al colours.

“We are proud to stand with Nepal at this mo­ment in their his­to­ry and look for­ward to ex­cit­ing and com­pet­i­tive crick­et in Shar­jah,” he fur­ther added.

Match Sched­ule (All Match­es to be played in Shar­jah, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates):

1st T20I – Sep­tem­ber 27, 2025

2nd T20I – Sep­tem­ber 28, 2025

3rd T20I – Sep­tem­ber 30, 2025

CMC