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

13 When it began as a first-class fixture, the North v South Trinidad match had attracted the island’s best cricketers. The first first-class match, in April 1959, featured three cricketers who had been, were, or would become Test cricketers, and that figure increased to a maximum of eight players for the match starting in April 1961. But as tours to or by the West Indies increased over the years, as better players became drawn to the domestic scene in England from early April onwards, and as, for a couple of seasons in the late 1970s, the very best players were taken away by World Series Cricket, the leading players increasingly became unavailable for the Beaumont or Texaco Cup matches back home in Trinidad. 5 As a result, by the early 1970s the soundness of continuing to treat these matches as first-class was being openly called into question. On page 57 of the West Indies Cricket Annual [WICA] 1975 we read that ‘the [1973/74] final was played with both teams well below strength. The situation not only diminished interest in the match but also raised the question once more as to the advisability of recognising Texaco Cup games as first-class’. The situation grew worse, at least as far as the Annual was concerned, as time went on. ‘Seven [internal] first-class matches 6 are now being played annually in Trinidad … It would not be unjust to state that several of the matches devalued their first-class rating … Since many of the matches were played at the same time as the Shell Shield 7 , it meant some of the leading players were often not available, making the first-class status afforded the [1977] tournament even more unjustified.’ [WICA 1977, page 64] ‘Once again the standard of play, and in most instances the standard of pitches too, cast doubts over the advisability of categorising Texaco Cup matches as first-class. No team truly deserved such status.’ [WICA 1978, page 72] ‘The Texaco Cup matches were played while the West Indies were touring India and Sri Lanka and while World Series Cricket was in action in Australia, [removing] the leading players from that tournament … Seldom has the first-class status been so devalued.’ [WICA 1979, page 78] Finally the Annual got its way: ‘After several years in which first-class status was charitably extended to the zonal competition for the Texaco Trophy in Trinidad & Tobago, the position was rationalised in 1980 when only the Beaumont Cup game between North-East and South-Central was recognised as first-class by the West Indies Board’. [WICA 1980, page 73] So the Texaco Cup competition of 1978/79 proved to be the last such tournament to be accorded first-class status. A non-first-class tournament on the same basis was held in the following season, but WICA 1980 reported that ‘there was much opposition to its format and timing, particularly since it hampered play in the National League club tournaments’. After that, the five-team zonal tournament seems to have slipped quietly away. But internal first-class matches within Trinidad had not yet died out altogether. For in 1975/76 the Beaumont Cup had been revived as the trophy awarded to the winners of an annual match between North & East Trinidad [which potentially also included players from Tobago] and South and Central Trinidad. The match was granted first-class status (and is thus the 5 A late exception was the Beaumont Cup match of 1979/80, in which four past or future Test cricketers played on either side, to equal the match record of eight set in 1960/61. 6 For an explanation of the seventh game, please see below. 7 In 1976/77 there was a direct clash between one of Trinidad & Tobago’s matches in the Shell Shield and the second round of fixtures in that season’s Texaco Cup. Trinidad – history