Double Headers

129 Season Play dates Fixture Venue Result 2001/02 4-5-6-7 Apr 5-6-7 Apr Jamaica v Guyana Guyana Board President’s XI v Indians Kingston Georgetown D L Although the match at Kingston ended as a draw, it should be reported that Guyana won the Shield by virtue of their first-innings lead (354 to 277). Their single-innings score comfortably exceeded the aggregate of the two innings of their second XI (118 and 168) back home in Georgetown. * * * * * This seems an appropriate place to mention a category of matches that arguably meets our definition of a double-header, but which stands apart from the instances discussed in the rest of this book. Since the 1990s, all Test countries have regularly fielded national sides expressly referred to as ‘A’ elevens, or sometimes as ‘B’ elevens; or more recently in England’s case, as the England Lions. These sides are generally made up of young players regarded as showing promise for possible future Test honours. They sometimes play at home in warm-up matches for touring teams, and sometimes go on tour themselves as a means of gaining experience. Although picked by the national selectors, their squads are chosen using different criteria from those used in selecting the full Test side. There is no intention that they should be seen as fully representative national sides, nor that they are necessarily the national ‘second eleven’. Thus when one of these elevens plays a first-class match at the same time as their country’s Test team , as has happened surprisingly often, there is no suggestion that the two teams are equal representatives of their country. It is for this reason that I place them apart from the other double-headers considered in these pages. To mid-November 2012, there have been as many as 86 occasions when a national ‘A’ or ‘B’ eleven has played a first-class match that coincided or overlapped with a Test match by the same country: 16 instances each for England A and Sri Lanka A, 15 for West Indies A (and another five for West Indies B), 13 for Pakistan B, 9 for South Africa A, 7 for India A, 3 for New Zealand A and 2 for Australia A. There have been no instances involving Zimbabwe A or Bangladesh A. The first such instance was as early as 1986, when West Indies B played Zimbabwe at Harare on 25-27- 29 October (Zimbabwe were not yet a Test-playing nation) at the same time as the West Indies were playing a Test match against Pakistan at Faisalabad. In five of these 86 instances, the Test team and the ‘A’ team were playing simultaneous home matches: three instances in New Zealand in March 2004 (when Tests against SA at Hamilton, Auckland and Wellington coincided respectively with ‘A’ side matches against Sri Lanka at Queenstown, Lincoln and Christchurch), and one each in South Africa (v Bangladesh and Sri Lanka A at Potchefstroom and Kimberley respectively in October 2002) and Sri Lanka (v Bangladesh and South Africa A at Colombo and Dambulla respectively in September 2005). Zimbabwe - Late starters