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

59 West Indies in 1991/92 Less than a fortnight after completing the 1990/91 series against Australia, the West Indies side was in England ahead of a five-Test series and a full programme of other first-class and one-day matches. The Test series was closely-contested and ended in a 2-2 draw – the first time since the drawn series of 1973/74 that West Indies had failed to win a series between the two sides. The series began with an even rarer event, a win for England in the first Test at Headingley – West Indies’ first defeat in a Test match in England in 24 matches since July 1969. England’s victory owed much to Graham Gooch’s second-innings 154* which, given the bowler-friendly conditions and the strength of the four-man West Indian attack of Ambrose, Marshall, Walsh and Patterson, is regarded by many as one of the greatest of all Test innings. From an England point of view, the match was significant in that it marked the Test debut of Zimbabwe-born Graeme Hick, whose performances in county cricket during his qualification period had marked him out as a likely future superstar. But West Indies’ bowlers were quick to expose frailties in his batting and, his confidence challenged, Hick was never to be the world-beater that had been forecast. Rain spoiled the second Test at Lord’s, and when West Indies won the next two Tests thanks to steady batting and the usual incisive quick bowling, another series win looked likely. But England turned it round at The Oval, where Phil Tufnell ran through their lower order in the first innings, obliging West Indies to follow on for the first time in any Test since 1984/85, and the first time against England since 1969. A better batting performance second time round was not enough to prevent the eventual five-wicket defeat. This series continued the break-up of the long-successful West Indian side, for the game at The Oval was the last of the Test careers of Viv Richards, Malcolm Marshall and Jeffrey Dujon; earlier in the series the Test career of the less-heralded but no less valued Gus Logie, middle-order stabiliser, also came to an end. But even with the loss of Marshall, the fast bowling was still in safe hands, notably those of Curtly Ambrose who took 28 wickets in the series against England. West Indies suffered a chastening lack of success in the Benson & Hedges World Cup, held in Australia and New Zealand in February/March 1992. For so long the masters of the one-day game, this time they failed to move beyond the group stage of the competition, in which they finished only sixth out of the nine competing sides. At home, the 1991/92 season looked like being the first for five years without any Test cricket, but the fast pace of change in South Africa altered all that. Having been readmitted to full membership of the ICC shortly before the World Cup, in April 1992 a South African squad containing a single non-white player (40-year-old Omar Henry) visited the Caribbean to play three one-day internationals, all of which they lost, and a single Test match, at Bridgetown (in which Henry did not play). This was their first Test match since readmission, and – of course – their first-ever against the West Indies. Attendance at the Test match was disappointing, for a variety of locally-based reasons unconnected with the appearance of an all-white side from a country whose apartheid laws had only recently been dismantled. But those who stayed away missed a thrilling finale, in which West Indies secured an unlikely victory thanks to the bowling of Walsh and Ambrose on the last morning, which the visitors had begun needing only a further 79 runs for victory with eight wickets in hand. They duly collapsed from 122-2 overnight to 148 all out, handing the West Indies victory by 52 runs. Player-retirements, and the mid-season departure of players involved in the World Cup, meant that the 1991/92 Red Stripe Cup competition lacked some of its star quality. The competition was won by Jamaica, who went through the season unbeaten to finish narrowly ahead of Leeward Islands.