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

252 West Indies in 1998/99 final. Barbados were unbeaten in their five league matches, winning the first four and only failing to make it a clean sweep when Jimmy Adams and Ricardo Powell steered Jamaica to safety from a score of three for three when following on. Nine of the regular Barbados side had, or would have, Test caps, and it was their all-round strength and consistency that ensured top place in the league table. Three sides – Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana and Jamaica – each had two victories in their five matches, and these were the three who joined Barbados in the knock-out games, leaving the Leeward and the Windward Islands to watch on from the side. Barbados won their semi-final against Jamaica to complete wins against all the other sides in the competition, but the other semi-final had to be decided on first innings after the last two days of the match were rained off. T&T thereby progressed to the first-ever Busta Cup Final, which was thus contested by the two leading teams from the league matches. Barbados won a low-scoring final by 160 runs, even though none of their players made a score higher than 62. Based on performances over the season as a whole, they were worthy winners. Barbadians led the way among the competition’s runscorers and wicket-takers. Their captain, Sherwin Campbell, scored 675 runs at 61.36, while Winston Reid was once again the leading wicket-taker with 47 wickets at 16.29. This figure also made him the leading wicket-taker in all first-class matches in the season, while Campbell (872 runs in all, at 45.89) was over 250 runs ahead of the field among the runscorers. Looking to the future, the season was memorable for the first-class debuts of two contrasting opening batsmen who were to make a significant impression in the Caribbean in the years ahead. First, Chris Gayle made his debut for Jamaica in an early-season match against West Indies A, organised to test the pitch at Sabina Park following the debacle in the Test match there eight months previously. The pitch performed adequately, Gayle perhaps less so (he made 0 and 0*, but retained his place in the side for most of the rest of the season). Then in January Devon Smith made a quiet start to a career which was to see him in and out of the Test side, but in which his consistent and prolific run-scoring was to make him a record-breaking stalwart of Windward Islands’ cricket for the next 20 years and more. BUSTA CUP 1998/99: FINAL TABLE P W L LWF DWF DLF ND Pts 1 Barbados 5 4 0 0 1 0 0 72 2 Trinidad & Tobago 5 2 1 0 1 0 1 44 3 Guyana 5 2 2 1 0 0 0 37 4 Jamaica 5 2 2 0 0 1 0 36 5 Leeward Islands 5 1 3 0 0 1 0 20 Windward Islands 5 1 3 0 0 0 1 20 Semi-finals: Barbados beat Jamaica by six wickets ​ Trinidad & Tobago drew with Guyana, and advanced to the final by virtue of their first-innings lead Final: ​ Barbados beat Trinidad & Tobago by 160 runs