Denesh Ramdin was West Indies' first-choice keeper through much of his career since he was picked in the squad to tour Sri Lanka in 2005 at the age of 19. He impressed with his smoothness and agility behind the stumps, and made a half-century on Test debut in Colombo. Later that year he scored a plucky 71 against an Australia attack comprising Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee, Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill in Hobart.

When India toured the West Indies in mid-2006, Ramdin's keeping was impressive on pitches where the ball often died even before reaching him. His batting was patchy, though he produced a superb calculated assault on the Indian bowlers in the final stages of the Kingston Test.

Over a period of time his batting became increasingly inconsistent while his wicketkeeping standards dropped a notch. He did make his maiden Test century - 166 against England in Barbados - in March 2009, but that was followed by ordinary performances against Australia and South Africa, which led to him being dropped from the Test and ODI teams.

Ramdin eventually returned to the Test side on the tour to England in 2012. After not doing much with the bat in the first two Tests, he struck an undefeated 107 in the third, but soured the occasion by flashing a note addressed to Viv Richards on the field. Richards had earlier criticised Ramdin's lack of contribution on the tour. Though Ramdin apologised later, the act earned him plenty of criticism, and a fine of 20% of his match fee by the referee.

However, that century did revive his batting fortunes: in the next 18 months, from June 2012 to December 2013, he scored three hundreds in 12 Tests and averaged 53.61; in 44 Tests before that, he had averaged 22.28. His ODI form also saw a spike in 2014, when he scored 516 runs in 13 games, including 169 off 121 balls against Bangladesh in St Kitts - the highest score by a West Indies batter at home.

In May 2014, he replaced Daren Sammy as Test captain, and led West Indies in 13 Tests, of which they won four, drew two, and lost seven, before Jason Holder took over. Ramdin's tenure ended following West Indies' 2-0 loss at home against Australia in 2015.

In a tri-series at home against Australia and South Africa in 2016, he became the first West Indies wicketkeeper to aggregate 2000 ODI runs. Overall he featured in eight limited-overs World Cups for West Indies, including their two T20I wins in 2012 and 2016.

He announced his retirement from international cricket in 2022, having not played a match for West Indies since 2019.