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

16 1970/71 Central and East Trinidad joined the Beaumont Cup competition. Central lost their first first-class match by a distance, but East beat South in their semi-final, which was the first of these games in which all 40 wickets fell. East had the better of the final against North but could not push home their advantage as North ended on 167-6 when needing 241 to win. The sides this season were weakened by the fact that the game was played during the West Indies’ home Test series against India; indeed, a Test match at Port-of-Spain began the day after the two Beaumont Cup semi-finals. 1971/72 Now competing for the Texaco Cup, East and South won through to the final. The match was scheduled to be played at the end of April, but when rain prevented any play on the first two days it was decided to abandon the match and rearrange it for early June. East won the rearranged final thanks largely to the bowling of 17-year-old Imtiaz Ali, who became the first bowler to take ten or more wickets in one of these matches. 1972/73 East and South again reached the final. In their semi-final against Central, East’s Imtiaz Ali again took ten wickets in the match, his first-innings return of 8-38 being a new record for the Beaumont/Texaco Cup. North conceded their semi-final against South when, having trailed on first innings, their chance of an outright victory had gone. South won the final despite a century from East’s Larry Gomes, making his first appearance in these matches, though not his first-class debut. In the final, all eleven South players are named in the scorecard of East’s first innings, with four bowlers taking wickets and the other seven players each taking at least one catch. 1973/74 Central beat East by an innings in the semi-final to secure their first first-class win. The other semi-final was won on first innings by North, for whom Joey Carew made his last first-class appearance and took 5-33 in South’s only innings. Central won the final for the first and only time, beating North by 82 runs. The final was North’s first defeat, other than by a concession, in any Beaumont/Texaco Cup match since June 1938. The final was also the first of these matches in which not a single past or future Test player appeared, not least because the full Trinidad & Tobago Shell Shield side was playing in a series of benefit games in Guyana at the time; North were reportedly missing six players as a result, and Central two. 1974/75 East and North reached the final by virtue of first-innings leads in the semis. North won the final despite losing seven wickets before scoring the 84 runs required in the fourth innings. They had done something similar in their semi-final against South, which they ended on 74-7 in pursuit of a target of 82. The semi-finals coincided with the West Indies’ tour in India, which ruled out Deryck Murray and Bernard Julien from playing. 1975/76 The Texaco Cup was now contested on a league basis. South won the competition by winning two of the only three matches in which an outright result was achieved. In their match against Central, South secured a first-innings lead despite being bowled out for 51. In the revived Beaumont Cup, there was only enough playing time for the sides to complete their respective first innings. For South & Central, Prince Bartholomew bettered Imtiaz Ali’s figures from 1972/73 by taking 8-27 in the innings of North & East. This remained the best innings analysis in any of these matches. 1976/77 In the Texaco Cup East, who had finished well clear at the bottom of the table in 1975/76, won the only two matches to produce an outright result, and thus secured the championship, while it was now Central’s turn to end the season trailing in last place. The second round of league fixtures coincided with Trinidad & Tobago’s Shell Shield match in Jamaica, and no Test players appeared in either of these Texaco games. In the match between Central and South, Lincoln Ohab made his first-class debut for Central at the age of 16y 74d, the youngest player to appear in any of these matches. The Beaumont Cup match provided an innings victory for North & East. Sheldon Gomes, brother of Larry, made the first century in matches for this cup since 1970/71. Trinidad – history