First-Class Matches Trinidad and Guyana 1958/59 to 1989/90

110 Guiana Cricket Board, and of the British Guiana Sugar Company - presented a cup to be contested in two-innings matches between the three counties. The Jones Cup was to continue as the principal internal competition in British Guiana, and Guyana as it became on independence in 1966, for nearly 30 years. From the start, there were two matches in each annual Cup competition. The first was a ‘semi-final’ between Essequibo and whichever of the other two counties was not the current holder of the Cup. The winners would then play the current Cup-holders in the final. Essequibo was by some distance the weakest of the three counties, and the effect was almost without exception to lead to a final between Demerara and Berbice. The Jones Cup finals of these earlier years were an unquestioned highlight of the local cricket season: ‘The roads would be busy with cricket fans driving in from various parts to watch the premier cricket extravaganza, featuring literally the best players in British Guiana. The stands were packed to the rafters, and ground seating was scarce … There was keen competitiveness among the players, as well as among the fans from the opposing counties. Camaraderie was always evident in the interaction of the fans, regardless of which team they were supporting. Cricket was the denominator that drew them together. Cricket was the ambassador of goodwill, at least for the four days of the inter-county Jones Cup.’ 3 Between its first holding in 1954/55 and 1970/71, there were 17 Jones Cup finals, each of them contested between Demerara and Berbice, of which Berbice won five (all between 1954 and 1962) and Demerara seven, with five draws. Now and throughout its history, the Cup was only awarded to a team winning an outright victory in the final, which – as in Trinidad - all too often led to the side batting first seeking to compile an impregnable first-innings score in order to be sure of avoiding defeat. As so often in the Caribbean region, the weather too played its part in preventing many matches reaching a definite conclusion. For most of the 1950s, Berbice were the strongest of the county sides, a fact recognised when two matches that they played outside the Jones Cup competition – against the MCC touring party in March 1960, and against the touring EW Swanton’s XI a year later – were accorded first-class status. Both matches ended as draws; their scorecards can be found on pages 160 and 161. In 1969, the Guyana Cricket Board applied to the West Indies Cricket Board to have the Jones Cup matches recognised as first-class. Having already set a precedent with the Beaumont Cup in Trinidad, the WICBC agreed to confer first-class status on the final (but not the semi-final) of the Jones Cup competition from the 1971/72 fixture. From that season until 1983/84, the competition continued on very much the same lines as before; with two important exceptions. First, bad weather prevented a result in the 1973/74 semi-final between Essequibo and Berbice (only two hours’ play was possible across the scheduled three days), and thus neither side earned the right to meet Demerara in the final. However, the President of the Guyana Cricket Board of Control, Frederick Ramprashad, still wished there to be a repeat of the annual first-class match between Demerara and Berbice, and so – for that year only – he decided to donate a trophy for a meeting of the two teams, who therefore competed in that year for the GCB President’s Trophy rather than the Jones Cup. A similar situation arose two seasons later when the semi-final between Essequibo and Berbice again ended in a draw without the two first innings being completed. The competition rules meant that neither side was qualified to play in the final, but a decision – not universally popular - was taken by the Guyana Cricket Board of Control to allow Berbice, who were still trailing on first 3 From the article by Sam Soopersaud cited at footnote 1. Guyana – History