The Frank Worrell Trophy: Australia v West Indies
The Frank Worrell Trophy explained: how the 1960-61 tied Test created it, every series result, the Australia v West Indies record and why it turned one-sided.
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Rivalries19 min read
- First awarded
- At the end of the 1960-61 series in Australia
- Named after
- Frank Worrell, the first black captain of the West Indies
- Origin match
- The tied Test at the Gabba, finished 14 December 1960
- Series contested
- 27 through the 2025 tour of the Caribbean
- Series record
- Australia 16, West Indies 8, three drawn
- Test head-to-head
- 108 Tests with Australia on 53 wins and West Indies on 31
- Last West Indies series win
- 1992-93 in Australia
- Last West Indies Test win in Australia
- The Gabba in January 2024
The Frank Worrell Trophy is the perpetual prize for a men's Test series between Australia and the West Indies, and it exists because of one match. In December 1960 the two sides tied a Test at the Gabba, the first tie in the history of the format, and Australian cricket decided the series deserved something permanent. The trophy was struck at the end of that summer and named for the touring captain, Frank Worrell, the first black man appointed to lead the West Indies.
Australia hold it and have held it since 1995. Across 27 series Australia have won 16, the West Indies eight, and three have been drawn. In Tests the two countries have met 108 times, Australia winning 53 and the West Indies 31, with the rest drawn apart from that tie in Brisbane. Those totals flatten a fixture that has had two completely different lives: a West Indian era running from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, and an Australian one that has run without interruption ever since.
This guide sets out what the Frank Worrell Trophy is, how the tied Test produced it, every series result, the matches that actually decided ownership, why the contest stopped being competitive, and what a West Indies tour looks like in the Australian summer now.
What the Frank Worrell Trophy is
It is a bilateral perpetual trophy, in the same family as the Ashes urn, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and the Trans-Tasman Trophy. The winner of a Test series between Australia and the West Indies holds it until someone takes it off them. If a series is drawn, the holder keeps it, which is why Australia retained it through the 1-1 summer of 2023-24 despite losing a Test at Brisbane.
The trophy is not awarded for one-day internationals or Twenty20 internationals. Those series are played, often on the same tour, but they have no bearing on who holds the Worrell.
It is also worth being clear about what the trophy is not. It is not an International Cricket Council competition, it does not confer ranking points of its own, and it is not tied to the World Test Championship. A Worrell series may count towards the championship, as the 2025 series in the Caribbean did, but the trophy itself is decided purely by the series scoreline.
The 1960-61 series that created it
The West Indies toured Australia in the summer of 1960-61 under Worrell, with Garry Sobers, Rohan Kanhai, Wes Hall, Alf Valentine and Lance Gibbs in the party. Richie Benaud captained Australia. Before a ball was bowled, Benaud and Worrell agreed with the Australian board's chairman, Donald Bradman, that the series would be played positively rather than for safety.
That agreement held. The first Test was tied. The second, at Melbourne, went to Australia. The third, at Sydney, went to the West Indies. The fourth, at Adelaide, was drawn only because the last pair survived the closing overs. The fifth, at Melbourne, went to Australia by two wickets and settled the series 2-1.
The summer changed the standing of the touring side in Australia. When the West Indies left Melbourne, large crowds lined the streets for a ticker-tape farewell, which was not the usual treatment for a beaten touring team. The trophy was commissioned in that atmosphere: the Australian board and Bradman asked the former Test bowler and professional jeweller Ernie McCormick to make it, and the design incorporated a ball used in the tied Test.
The tied Test at the Gabba, December 1960
The first Test began at the Brisbane Cricket Ground on 9 December 1960 and finished on the 14th. Sobers made 132 in the West Indies' first innings of 453. Australia replied with 505, Norm O'Neill making 181. The West Indies were then bowled out for 284, Alan Davidson taking six wickets to go with his first-innings five, which made him the first man in Test cricket to score a hundred runs and take ten wickets in the same match.
Australia needed 233. They were six down for 92 before Davidson and Benaud added 134. Davidson was run out going for a second run with six still needed, and Wes Hall began the last over, of eight balls, with Australia holding three wickets.
That over is the most closely documented in Test history. A single came from the first ball. Benaud tried to hook the second and was caught behind by Gerry Alexander. Ian Meckiff missed the third. A bye off the fourth levelled the scores. Then, off the seventh ball, Meckiff swung at Hall, Lindsay Kline pushed the ball towards square leg and set off, and Joe Solomon picked up and threw down the single stump he could see from side-on. Meckiff was short. Both totals read 737, and Test cricket had its first tie after 84 years of trying.
- Six neededWes Hall began the final eight-ball over with Australia needing six runs and three wickets in hand.
- A singleAustralia took one from the first ball to reduce the target to five.
- Benaud goesRichie Benaud attempted a hook off the second ball and was caught behind by wicketkeeper Gerry Alexander.
- A bye levels itIan Meckiff missed the third ball and a bye off the fourth brought the scores level.
- Solomon throwsOff the seventh ball Lindsay Kline pushed towards square leg and Joe Solomon ran out Ian Meckiff with a side-on throw at a single stump.
- TiedBoth sides finished on 737 runs and the match became the first tie in Test history.
A step-by-step account of Wes Hall's final eight-ball over drawn from the published Brisbane scorecard and contemporary reports. It is a sequence of events, not a measurement.
Frank Worrell, and why the trophy carries his name
Naming a trophy after a visiting captain rather than a home player was not a routine decision in 1961, and the choice tells you something about how the series was received here.
Worrell was a Barbadian batsman and medium-pacer who had already had a long career in English league cricket and had studied in Manchester before he was appointed to lead the West Indies in 1960. He was the first black man given the job on a permanent basis, in a side whose captaincy had until then been reserved for white players regardless of who the best cricketer in the team was. The appointment was contested at home and it was made only after sustained public argument, much of it led by the writer C. L. R. James.
What he did with it in Australia is the reason the trophy exists. Worrell held together a team that had been beaten in Brisbane in the most painful way available, kept it playing attacking cricket for four more Tests, and left the country with its reputation transformed. He was later knighted, and he died in 1967 at 42. Australian cricket named the fixture after him within a year of watching him captain it, which remains the strongest compliment the Australian game has paid a touring player.
What the trophy looks like
The Frank Worrell Trophy is a small perpetual piece rather than a large cup. Its distinguishing feature is that a ball used in the tied Test was built into it, so the object physically contains the match that caused it to exist. That is unusual among cricket's perpetual trophies, most of which are commissioned silverware with no material link to a particular game.
It is presented at the end of every series regardless of where the series is played, and both Cricket Australia and Cricket West Indies put it on display during a tour.
Every Frank Worrell Trophy series
The full list is the fastest way to see the shape of the fixture. Read down the holder column and three blocks appear: an Australian period to the mid-1970s, a West Indian period from 1977-78 to 1994-95, and an Australian period that has run ever since.
| Season | Host | Result | Holder after |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960-61 | Australia | Australia 2-1 | Australia |
| 1964-65 | West Indies | West Indies 2-1 | West Indies |
| 1968-69 | Australia | Australia 3-1 | Australia |
| 1972-73 | West Indies | Australia 2-0 | Australia |
| 1975-76 | Australia | Australia 5-1 | Australia |
| 1977-78 | West Indies | West Indies 3-1 | West Indies |
| 1979-80 | Australia | West Indies 2-0 | West Indies |
| 1981-82 | Australia | Drawn | West Indies |
| 1983-84 | West Indies | West Indies 3-0 | West Indies |
| 1984-85 | Australia | West Indies 3-1 | West Indies |
| 1988-89 | Australia | West Indies 3-1 | West Indies |
| 1990-91 | West Indies | West Indies 2-1 | West Indies |
| 1992-93 | Australia | West Indies 2-1 | West Indies |
| 1994-95 | West Indies | Australia 2-1 | Australia |
| 1996-97 | Australia | Australia 3-2 | Australia |
| 1998-99 | West Indies | Drawn | Australia |
| 2000-01 | Australia | Australia 5-0 | Australia |
| 2003 | West Indies | Australia 3-1 | Australia |
| 2005-06 | Australia | Australia 3-0 | Australia |
| 2008 | West Indies | Australia 2-0 | Australia |
| 2009-10 | Australia | Australia 2-0 | Australia |
| 2011-12 | West Indies | Australia 2-0 | Australia |
| 2015 | West Indies | Australia 2-0 | Australia |
| 2015-16 | Australia | Australia 2-0 | Australia |
| 2022-23 | Australia | Australia 2-0 | Australia |
| 2023-24 | Australia | Drawn | Australia |
| 2025 | West Indies | Australia 3-0 | Australia |
The head-to-head in Tests
Australia lead 53 to 31 from 108 Tests. That is a comfortable margin, and it is also almost entirely the product of the last thirty years. Between the 1977-78 series and the 1992-93 series the West Indies did not lose a Frank Worrell Trophy series at all, and they won more Tests than Australia across that stretch. Since 1994-95 Australia have not lost one.
A supporter who started watching in 1985 and a supporter who started in 2005 have effectively followed two different fixtures. Both would recognise the trophy. Neither would recognise the other's version of the contest.
- Australia16
- West Indies8
Completed series only, through the 2025 tour of the Caribbean. Three series were drawn and are excluded from both sides, so the two numbers do not sum to 27.
Show the numbers
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Australia | 16 |
| West Indies | 8 |
1964-65: the trophy leaves for the first time
Australia went to the Caribbean in 1964-65 under Bob Simpson and lost 2-1. It was the first time an Australian side had lost a series to the West Indies and the first change of ownership of the trophy. Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith bowled fast and short on pitches that suited them, and Griffith's action drew open complaint from the Australian camp, which set the tone for a fixture that has rarely been polite.
Australia won it back at home in 1968-69 by 3-1 and again away in 1972-73 by 2-0, so the first fifteen years of the trophy's existence were mostly Australian.
1975-76: a 5-1 summer and its consequences
The West Indies came to Australia in 1975-76 as the newly crowned world one-day champions and were beaten 5-1. Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson bowled at them all summer on fast Australian pitches and Ian Chappell's side won at Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide.
The consequence mattered more than the scoreline. Clive Lloyd concluded that the answer to sustained pace was more pace, and within two years the West Indies were selecting four fast bowlers in every Test. The pace battery that dominated world cricket for the next fifteen years was assembled in direct response to a beating in Australia.
1979-80 to 1992-93: the West Indian ownership
The trophy went to the West Indies in 1977-78 and stayed there for seventeen years. Across that period they beat Australia in Australia in 1979-80, 1984-85, 1988-89 and 1992-93, drew here in 1981-82, and won at home in 1983-84 and 1990-91.
For an Australian supporter of a certain age this is the defining memory of the fixture, and it was not a close contest. Australian batting orders were dismantled by Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh on grounds that gave those bowlers everything they wanted. Australia's own fast bowlers of the period, from Lillee at the end of his career to Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes, were good, but the visitors had four of them at once and could rotate.
The World Series Cricket years complicate the record slightly. In 1977-78 and 1978-79 many of the best players from both countries were contracted to Kerry Packer rather than their boards, and the official Test sides were weaker than either country could actually field. That story is told in the World Series Cricket guide.
Adelaide, January 1993: one run
The fourth Test of the 1992-93 series is the best match played between the two countries since 1960. The West Indies led the series 1-0 with two to play. Australia, chasing 186 at Adelaide Oval, were seven down for 74. Tim May finished 42 not out, Justin Langer made 54 on debut, and May and Craig McDermott added 40 for the tenth wicket.
With two runs needed McDermott was given out caught behind off Courtney Walsh. The West Indies won by one run, still the narrowest runs margin in Test history. They then went to Perth and won by an innings and 25 runs, Curtly Ambrose taking seven wickets for one run in a spell that removed the match inside a session.
Those two Tests, eight days apart, are the high-water mark of West Indian cricket in Australia. They are also the last series the West Indies have won in this fixture.
1994-95: Australia take it back
Mark Taylor's side went to the Caribbean in 1994-95 and won 2-1. Steve Waugh made 200 at Sabina Park in the deciding Test after a well-documented refusal to be intimidated by Ambrose, and Glenn McGrath and Paul Reiffel bowled Australia to the win. It ended fifteen years of West Indian ownership of the trophy and, more broadly, the West Indies' long run without losing a Test series anywhere.
That is where the current Australian tenure begins. It has not been interrupted since.
1996-97 and 2000-01: the end of the contest
The 1996-97 series in Australia was the last competitive one. Australia won 3-2 after trailing, and the West Indies took the Perth Test on a fast pitch. That Perth win was their last in Australia for 27 years.
By 2000-01 the gap had become embarrassing. Australia won all five Tests, including matches at Melbourne and Sydney that ended well inside the distance. Brian Lara was still one of the best batters in the world and it made no difference to the result.
The long Australian era, 2003 to 2022
Between 2003 and 2022 the two countries played seven series and Australia won all of them, most by 2-0 or better. Tours in both directions shrank from five Tests to two. The Australian summer stopped building itself around a West Indies visit and began using it as a second, shorter tour alongside a bigger one.
- 27Series contested
- 16Australia series wins
- 8West Indies series wins
- 3Series drawn
Structural counts taken from the published series list through the 2025 series in the Caribbean. They count series, not quality or closeness.
The Gabba, January 2024: Shamar Joseph
The 2023-24 series was two Tests. Australia won the first at Adelaide by ten wickets. The second, a day-night match at the Gabba, went to the West Indies by eight runs.
Shamar Joseph, playing his second Test, had his foot injured by a Mitchell Starc yorker on the third evening. He bowled on it the next day, took seven for 68 in a long spell either side of the dinner break, and had Josh Hazlewood caught to end the match. Steve Smith made 91 not out at the other end.
It was the West Indies' first Test win in Australia since 1997 and their first anywhere against Australia in more than twenty years. It also drew the series 1-1, so Australia kept the trophy. Both facts matter: the result was the best day West Indian cricket had had in Australia in a generation, and it still did not change the ownership of the trophy.
2025 in the Caribbean: 27 all out
Australia toured in June and July 2025 and won 3-0. They took Bridgetown by 159 runs and Grenada by 133, which retained the trophy with a match to spare. The third Test, a day-night match at Sabina Park in Kingston, was won by 176 runs.
The last innings of that match is now in the record book. The West Indies, chasing 204, were bowled out for 27 in 14.3 overs. Only Justin Greaves reached double figures, with 11. Mitchell Starc, playing his 100th Test, took six for nine and reached a five-wicket haul in 15 balls, the fastest in men's Test history. Scott Boland took a hat-trick. It was the lowest total in West Indian Test history and the second lowest by any side in any Test.
That match is the clearest illustration of where the fixture now sits. Australia's fast bowlers, several of them past 34, dismissed a full-strength West Indies for a score lower than any they had made in 97 years of Test cricket.
The recent Australian summers, 2015-16 and 2022-23
Two short home series bracket the current period and are worth separating out, because they show what a West Indies tour of Australia has become.
In 2015-16 the West Indies played three Tests, at Hobart, Melbourne and Sydney, and lost the series 2-0 with the Sydney match drawn after rain. In 2022-23 they played two, at Perth and Adelaide, and lost both, the Perth Test by 164 runs and the Adelaide day-night Test by 419. Australia used those matches to bed in new players rather than to settle anything.
Both series drew the smallest Test crowds of their respective summers. Neither had a fifth day that mattered. Neither had the trophy genuinely in question, since Australia held it and a drawn series would have been enough. That is the structural problem with a perpetual trophy in an uneven fixture: the holder can lose a Test, lose a session, even lose a match at the Gabba, and still walk away with the silverware.
Why the contest became uneven
Three things, in roughly this order.
First, player supply. West Indian cricket draws on a group of separate territories rather than one national economy, and the region's best athletes have other options, both in other sports and in franchise Twenty20 leagues that pay more than a red-ball retainer. Australia by contrast maintains a large full-time professional layer under the national side, described in the Sheffield Shield guide.
Second, the calendar. The money in international cricket is concentrated in series involving India, England and Australia. West Indies tours generate less broadcast revenue, so they get fewer Tests, shorter preparation and less advantageous scheduling in both directions.
Third, compounding. A team that loses regularly loses experienced players to retirement and franchise contracts faster than it develops replacements, which makes it lose more. The West Indies have produced individual cricketers as good as anyone in the game throughout this period. They have not been able to keep eleven of them available at once.
The white-ball fixture
Australia and the West Indies also meet in one-day and Twenty20 internationals, usually attached to the same tour. That contest is less lopsided than the Test one, because West Indian strength is concentrated in exactly the skills Twenty20 rewards and their players are among the most experienced franchise cricketers anywhere. Several have played in the Big Bash League over the years.
None of it affects the Frank Worrell Trophy, which is a Test trophy only.
Where the trophy fits in the Australian summer
When the West Indies tour Australia now they generally get two Tests in the second half of the summer, after the main visitor has gone home. The Gabba, Adelaide Oval and Perth have hosted most recently, and pink-ball day-night Tests have been used to help crowds. The West Indies have not been given a Boxing Day Test or a New Year Test at Sydney for a long time.
For a supporter that is not all bad. Tickets are cheap, the grounds are not full, and it is one of the few remaining chances to watch Test cricket in Australia without booking months ahead. The grounds guide covers what each venue is like, and the viewing guide covers broadcast arrangements.
How the trophy compares with Australia's other Test prizes
The Ashes is bigger commercially and culturally, and it has a fixed cycle the Worrell has never had. The Border-Gavaskar Trophy against India has overtaken the Worrell in both money and competitive interest since about 2017. The Trans-Tasman Trophy against New Zealand is played about as rarely.
What the Frank Worrell Trophy has that none of them has is a founding match everybody can name. The Ashes has an obituary in a newspaper. The Worrell has the tied Test.
The Australian players made by this fixture
Alan Davidson and Richie Benaud in 1960-61. Lillee and Thomson in 1975-76. Allan Border across the whole of the 1980s, batting against the best fast-bowling attack ever assembled and averaging enough to keep Australia in matches. Steve Waugh in 1995. Glenn McGrath and Ricky Ponting in the 2000s. Mitchell Starc in 2025.
There is a decent argument that Australian cricket's low point and its recovery are both better measured against the West Indies than against England, because the West Indies were the world standard for fifteen years and Australia had to become better than that standard to displace them. The history of Australian cricket covers that arc in full, and the origins guide picks up the much earlier part of the story.
Practical notes for going to a Worrell Test
A West Indies Test in Australia is the easiest big-ticket cricket in the country to attend. General admission is usually available in the week of the match and often on the day, which is not true of an Ashes or India Test at any of the major grounds. Day three and day four are the safest bets for a full day's play, because these series rarely last the distance.
Pink-ball matches at Adelaide Oval and Perth start in the afternoon and finish late, which changes the day entirely: the twilight session is when the ball moves most and when the crowd is largest. If you are choosing one day of a two-Test series, choose the twilight session of a day-night match.
Membership is not necessary. The state associations sell public tickets for these fixtures well below Ashes prices, and children's admission is often free or close to it. It is the cheapest way in Australia to show someone what fast bowling actually looks like from twenty metres away.
What to watch for next
Three things. Whether Cricket West Indies can retain a fast bowler like Shamar Joseph in red-ball cricket through his peak years, which is the single biggest variable. Whether the World Test Championship cycle gives the fixture more than two Tests at a time. And whether Australia's own fast-bowling group, which won the 2025 series with bowlers in their mid-thirties, is replaced by something as good.
The trophy itself is not going anywhere in a hurry. It has been in Australian hands for more than thirty years, it is decided only by a series result, and a drawn series is enough to keep it. For it to move, the West Indies would have to win a series outright for the first time since 1992-93. The Gabba in 2024 was a reminder that they can still win a Test. A series is a different question, and it is the one that matters.
For more on the Australian side of the fixture, see the cricket in Australia hub, the Australia section, the wider cricket section and the guide to spin bowling in Australia.