First-Class Matches West Indies 1989/90 to 1998/99

157 West Indies in 1995/96 West Indies undertook a full-length tour of England during the summer of 1995. It was not the happiest of tours, on or off the field, with the side beset with injuries and disciplinary issues. Inconsistent performances were perhaps the inevitable consequence. In the six-match Test series, the two sides traded victories over the first four matches, with the visitors capturing some of their old form in the third Test at Edgbaston, as they defeated England after little over an hour’s play on the third day. But this performance did not herald similar success in the two remaining matches, both of which were drawn to leave the series all square at 2-2. Off the field, Brian Lara was one of the more ‘difficult’ members of the side. But on it, while not quite capturing the form of 12 months previously, he still dominated, with 765 runs in the Test series at 85.00, including innings of 145, 152 and 179 in the last three Tests. His team-mates managed just one century between them over the whole series, though captain Richie Richardson scored 93 at The Oval in what proved to be his last Test innings. At the other end, the four quick bowlers each took over 20 wickets, headed by Ian Bishop – returning after a two-year injury absence – with 27, and Courtney Walsh with 26. For the West Indies, even in England Test matches were still a fast bowler’s game. Leg-spinner Rajindra Dhanraj was comfortably their leading wicket-taker in first- class matches on the tour (he took 61; next best was 43), but he played in only one of the six Tests, in which he returned overall figures of 0-191. The major international commitment of 1995/96 was the Wills World Cup in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in February and March 1996. Defeat by Kenya, by 73 runs, was the low point of the group matches, but at least West Indies reached the knock-out stage this time, in which a narrow win over South Africa brought them up against favourites Australia in the semis. All was going well at 165-2 chasing 208, but then collapse set in and the game was lost by five runs. Following the West Indies’ first series defeat for 15 years in the last series of 1994/95, the ill- disciplined drawn series in England, and the embarrassing World Cup losses, recriminations were swift. Richie Richardson, who had been the undeserving scapegoat for these ‘failures’, resigned from the captaincy before he was pushed, while the coach and various senior members of the WICB also left their posts. Cricket in the West Indies was entering an era of great and prolonged uncertainty, as attempts to recapture the team’s past glories were seemingly doomed by frequent disputes between players and the Board, as well as by the absence of the once-in-a-generation world-beating players who had dominated the West Indian scene for so long. There was still a two-match Test series to play at home against New Zealand, who were visiting the Caribbean for the first time for 11 years. The series was won 1-0, aided by innings of 208 by opener Sherwin Campbell in the first Test, matched by Jimmy Adams’ 208* in the second. A controversial change was made to the format of the domestic Red Stripe Cup competition, which had been contested as a single round-robin league in each season since 1987/88. For 1995/96 it was decided that the title would be awarded to the winners of a five-day final between the two top teams in the league. Those two sides were Trinidad & Tobago and, some distance behind them in the table, the Leeward Islands. Trinidad & Tobago had won four of their five league games, as against the Leewards’ three, and one of their four wins had been by nine wickets over the Leewards in the last round of matches. But the positions were reversed in the final, which the Leewards won by 73 runs to take the Red Stripe Cup for the second time in the past three seasons.