Chinelle Henry hits a six during the 2025 WPL for UP Warriorz

Chinelle Henry wasn’t supposed to be in this year’s WPL. She was at home in the Caribbean, in her words “minding my business” when her phone started ringing.

“I’m being called, I’m being texted, I’m being searched for,” Henry tells Wisden.com. “A lot of people were texting me and saying; ‘people are looking for you’. I was like, ‘What do you mean people are looking for me?’ This guy reached out to my kit sponsor and I was like, ‘Wait, I’m not lost’. But I had no idea what happened.”

Henry was being tracked down by two WPL teams who were both seeking injury replacements at short notice. Two innings she’d played in India a month before, had prompted significant interest in her as a highly effective power-hitter. In particular, the 43-runs off 16 balls she’d scored in a T20I in Mumbai were crucial. Going into that game, Henry had hit four sixes across her 52-innings T20I career. In less than half an hour in Mumbai, she doubled that total in a single-handed bombardment against India’s premier attack.

That innings was followed less than two weeks later by a more conservative 61 off 72 balls in an ODI in Vadodara. What stood out there wasn’t only how much her teammates struggled in comparison, but the percentage of Henry’s runs made up by boundaries (62%). Off the back of those two innings, and after UP Warriorz had edged out RCB to secure Henry’s services, she was back on the plane to India, but with little knowledge of the role she would play in the tournament.

“I came here with people who have been here before and this is my first time,” says Henry. “The first game I didn’t play, and then I came in and played the second game and all the other games after that, trying to help the team. It was never at the back of my mind that I would play this much, especially as an injury replacement player.”

The reason Henry has become one of the first names on the teamsheet for UP Warriorz is the success in the innings-finisher role she’s played for them ever since that second game. Having come out to bat with five overs left against Delhi Capitals, Henry whacked 33 off 15 balls, including four consecutive boundaries against Shikha Pandey. It wasn’t quite enough to take her side over the line, with Delhi scraping to the finish with a single ball remaining, but in her next outing three days later, against the same opposition, Henry did get the job done. Coming in late in the innings again, batting at No.8 with UP 89-6, she rampaged through Delhi’s international quality death bowlers. She smashed eight sixes including an 88-metre monster, and equalled the record for the fastest fifty in WPL history. By the time she was caught in the deep off the final ball of the innings, she was on 62 off 23 balls, and UP were out of Delhi’s reach on 177.

“I get a lot of texts and DMs since that innings,” says Henry. “Every time I walk out on the field they say they came to the game to watch me play. That gives me confidence and more thrill because I have a lot more fans to entertain while doing well for the team… When I’m having fun, when I’m smiling, when I’m enjoying what I do is when I’m at my best.”

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While the ferocity of Henry’s hitting has made crowds expectant, it feels as if she has come out of nowhere.

She is an accidental cricketer. “I actually did not like cricket when I was younger,” Henry says. “My main thing was track and field because, in Jamaica, we’re known for running. One day, I went to a cricket game and I was running around, fielding balls. Because I was a track and field athlete, I was quick across the ground. For some reason I could catch a cricket ball - I don’t know how because I’d never played cricket.

“Back then, I had the opportunity to play with men and boys, so it shaped my career skillwise, the speed at which people bowl at me and getting tough. I had the privilege of playing with boys because there wasn’t female cricket when I started, or not a lot of it. I dropped everything because I was pretty good and started focusing on cricket.”

But while her international debut came over a decade ago, it wasn’t until 2018 that she was given a proper run in a West Indies shirt as a lower-order batter and part-time bowler. Even then, it took some time for her to find her feet. By the end of 2023, Henry’s T20I batting numbers did not suggest a future WPL finisher, with an average of 13.51 and a strike rate of 84.10. After an ODI series loss in Sri Lanka ahead of last year’s T20 World Cup, in which her highest score was 13 off 21 balls, she hit a crisis point.

“Part of me felt responsible for the team losing some of those games because, at that time, my batting role became a bit more relied on in the team and I wasn’t able to help,” said Henry. “Mentally, it took a lot, and I had to do a lot behind the scenes to work on that.

“I remember having a conversation with Shane [Deitz, West Indies women's head coach] after that Sri Lanka series. We had a camp, and I said: ‘I don’t think I’m in the right mental space to go to that camp. It’s just not in me’. He was like ‘Yeah, get help - we need you for the World Cup, so get help’. I didn’t go to that camp, and over those days I just had mental skills sessions. I didn’t go to training. I was just trying to figure out: Why am I not producing the way that I know I could?

“All I did in my backyard for two weeks leading up to it [the World Cup] was hit a ball tied to a tree. Just hitting it. I think that helped me remember how it felt to play cricket when I was younger, just enjoying it. A reporter asked me why I was always smiling - that’s when I know I’m at my best. That helps me to relax and remember that little girl who is always having fun, and doing her best… The six-hitting has become easier now because I’m more confident, and the skillset has come easier than it has before because I’ve had a lot of time to think about it and do it over again.”

When Henry flew out to the UAE for the World Cup, she joined a West Indies team destined for their best finish in three editions. Now promoted to the middle order, she hit an unbeaten 18 off 10 balls against Scotland to finish the game in a partnership with Deandra Dottin. The speed at which the pair chased down the runs at the end of the innings, reaching the 100 runs required in less than 12 overs, meant the West Indies’ NRR carried them into the semi-final qualifying positions in a three-way tie at the top of Group B. Two months later, firmly placed at No.5 in the West Indies batting order, she played the blistering innings in Mumbai that got her noticed by WPL franchises. Now she’s become the breakout star of cricket’s glitziest franchise showcase.

“In 2018, when I made that World Cup squad in the Caribbean, there was no looking back from then. I made a promise that this was going to be my career and I’m going to spend time to make it the best that I can. At 29, I’ve finally started to see results.”

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