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

111 innings when the semi-final ended, to proceed to the Jones Cup final. One source says that this decision was taken ‘because it was felt that Essequibo played negative cricket, a decision that angered the whole Cinderella County’. 4 Or maybe it was just that, as two years previously, the Board couldn’t bear to forgo an annual match between Demerara and Berbice. More remarkable were the events of the 1980/81 season. In some previous years, Essequibo were unable to put out a team to play in the Jones Cup semi-final; but when they did, they were generally comprehensively beaten. Until October 1980, that is, when they played Demerara in the semi-final, and against all expectations they won. Scheduled for three days, the match had to be extended into a fourth in order even to get a result on first innings; but eventually Essequibo secured a 31-run first innings lead, and with it the right to meet Berbice in the Jones Cup final: the county’s first and only first-class match, ever. Local newspapers described Essequibo’s success as ‘one of the biggest upsets ever seen in local cricket’; but there was no fairytale result in the final, as Berbice won by nine wickets against an Essequibo side all 11 of whom were playing their one and only first-class match. As in Trinidad, so in Guyana: in the mid-1980s sponsors stepped in, and the Jones Cup – under that name – was no more. Instead, for five seasons from 1984/85 the counties played for the Guystac Trophy. 5 In other respects the competition continued unchanged, with Essequibo unable to repeat their modest but remarkable success of 1980. Changes came for the 1989/90 season, however, with Guystac’s sponsorship ending and the inter-county competition being rechristened the Kenneth Sookram Memorial Trophy in honour of the recently-deceased Secretary of the Guyana Cricket Board. And for the first time, the competition was intended to be played by the three counties on an all-play-all league basis, with all matches counted as first-class. In the event, the latter idea was thwarted when rain prevented Essequibo playing either of their scheduled matches against Berbice and Demerara, and so the records just show a single first-class match being played in the competition, between Berbice and Demerara as usual. Whereas in Trinidad, voices had been raised relatively early against the continuing grant of first- class status to certain internal matches (see page 13), in Guyana the concerns were less – or at least, if they existed they were less forcefully expressed. Anote of unease was sounded in the West Indies Cricket Annual in 1984 when it was noted that the 1983 Jones Cup final had been played while eight Guyanese players were away with West Indies’ sides in India and Zimbabwe, and that the contest, though ‘keen as usual’, suffered as a result. But after that, there was silence on the subject from the Annual for the next five years. Nevertheless, the first season of the Kenneth Sookram Memorial Trophy was the last in which first-class status was granted to internal matches in Guyana. Voices were now being raised in wider arenas, and eventually, as already noted on page 9, a decision was taken by the West Indies Cricket Board of Control in May 1990 – six months after the 1989/90 tournament in Guyana had ended – that first-class status would be withdrawn from all internal matches within the territories of the West Indies; and ‘as a consequence, the final of the inter-county tournament in Guyana between Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo will no longer be adjudged first-class’. 6 Again, as in Trinidad, so in Guyana: the inter-county competition continued in various guises over the following years: as the Kenneth Sookram Memorial Trophy to 1992/93, and thereafter as the Soca Cup or as the Inter-county Trophy, in either case sometimes with various sponsors’ names attached. Three or four-day fixtures between the counties continued until September 2014. A tournament scheduled for May 2015 was cancelled because of wet weather, and later that year the Guyana Cricket Board announced that the senior inter-county tournaments would be scrapped altogether (although they continue at age-group level) and replaced by a local franchise system. 4 From an online article ‘Remembering Courtney Gonsalves’ by Charwayne McPherson, at www.kaieteurnewslineonline. com, datelined 31 March 2016. 5 Guystac was the short name of the Guyana State Corporation, which had been founded in 1971 to co-ordinate structures and operations in the country’s ever-expanding public sector. 6 From the Press Release issued following the WICBC meeting, as quoted on page 17 of the West Indies Cricket Annual 1990. Guyana – History