Worrell had been ill for some months before the diagnosis. He had complained of fatigue during a brief tour of management duties earlier in the year and had been admitted to the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston in February 1967. The diagnosis was acute leukemia. He died within weeks. He was 42 years old.
The response across the Caribbean was immediate. Trinidad and Jamaica declared days of mourning. Flags flew at half mast across the islands; Test players from every island flew to Kingston for the funeral. Garry Sobers, his successor as West Indies captain, broke down at the graveside. The eulogy was delivered by Sir Learie Constantine, the great pre-war all-rounder who had pushed the West Indies Cricket Board for years to appoint Worrell as captain.
It was the Westminster Abbey memorial service on 7 May 1967, however, that confirmed Worrell's standing in the wider cricket world. The Abbey, which had never previously hosted a sportsman's memorial, agreed to a full service after representations from C.L.R. James and the West Indies High Commission in London. Constantine read the lesson. The pews were filled with English cricketers — Cowdrey, May, Compton, Bedser, Trueman among them — and with Caribbean dignitaries.
Worrell's record as captain — 9 wins, 3 losses in 15 Tests, the Tied Test, the 1963 series win in England — was substantial but not unprecedented. What was unprecedented was his role as the first Black man trusted with the captaincy and the dignity with which he had carried it. C.L.R. James wrote in The Cricketer that Worrell's death marked the closing of a particular Caribbean chapter: the era when a single man's example could change the politics of an entire region.