England players banned from leaving Trinidad hotel after man shot dead – except to play golf
England’s cricketers have been banned from leaving their team hotel on the island of Trinidad after a man was shot dead on the same road.
The players had already been warned not to leave the Hyatt Regency hotel except for the two matches on the island, on Tuesday and Thursday, training on Monday and a pre-arranged round of golf between matches.
The need for caution was shown when a man, identified in the local media as 47-year-old Wendell Walker, was shot dead on Wrightson Road, Port of Spain, close to the Hyatt Regency. Walker was driving a silver Mercedes-Benz when gunmen opened fire. Local media also reported another shooting, at a shopping centre in San Juan a few miles east, this weekend.
England have toured the Caribbean a number of times since their last visit to Trinidad in 2009. Since, their tours have generally tended to focus on the most tourist-friendly Caribbean islands, Barbados and Antigua and, to a lesser extent, Grenada and St Lucia. England have also not toured Jamaica since 2009 or played in Guyana since the T20 World Cup in 2010.
The World Population Review ranks Trinidad as the nation with the sixth-highest crime rate on the planet, with the situation worsening in recent years. The number of murders rose from 171 in 2002 to a high of 605 last year. In the first nine months of 2023 there were 454 reported murders, of which 184 were classified as gang-related, and 50 as drug-related.
England trail the T20 series 2-1 after a stirring win in Grenada on Sunday. The final two matches will be played at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Taroubra, not the Queen’s Park Oval, the island’s traditional cricketing venue.
West Indies have tweaked their squad for the last two matches, dropping Shimron Hetmyer, resting Alzarri Joseph and calling up Johnson Charles and Oshane Thomas.
