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

83 West Indies in 1992/93 1992/93 marked a last flourish of the great West Indian era, with successes at both Test and one-day international level reminiscent of the glory days of the 70s and 80s. The ODI side was victorious in both of the multilateral series in which they competed, beating the hosts 2-0 in the final of the three-team Benson & Hedges World Series Cup in Australia in January 1993, and a month later defeating World Cup holders Pakistan in the final of the Total Triangular Series in South Africa. Pakistan had also been the third team in the WSC in Australia, where West Indies defeated them in three of their four meetings at the group stage. Either side of those ODI events the Test team repeated its programme from 1990/91 by playing first a return series inAustralia, and then a return series at home against Pakistan. Both were played under the relaxed leadership of their new permanent captain Richie Richardson, whose appointment to the post ahead of Desmond Haynes had earlier caused some controversy, particularly in Haynes’ home island of Barbados. As in 1990/91, West Indies won the five-match series in Australia by a margin of 2-1, coming from behind after holding out for a tense draw in the first Test at Brisbane, and then being spun to defeat by Shane Warne at Melbourne. The turning-point was the third game at Sydney, in which Brian Lara announced his arrival as a world-class batsman with a never-to-be-forgotten innings of 277 – his maiden Test century, in his fifth Test; and an innings only ended by a run-out. Described by Wisden as “an innings of breathtaking quality”, it ensured that West Indies gained a first-innings lead after Australia had declared with their score past 500, in a match that ended as a high-scoring draw. Lara’s was the highest individual innings in Tests between these two sides, beating Doug Walters’ 242 on the same ground in 1968/69. The fourth Test, at Adelaide, was Test cricket’s first match to be decided by a single run, the (home) umpire’s decision to give Craig McDermott out caught behind when Australia needed only two runs for victory, after a last-wicket stand of 40, being still disputed in some quarters today. But West Indies’ innings victory in the final Test at Perth was an emphatic reassertion of the power of their fast-bowling attack, headed on this occasion by Curtly Ambrose and Ian Bishop, who took nine and eight wickets in the match respectively. The three-Test series with Pakistan in April/May 1993 produced the first definite series victory for either side since their meeting in 1980/81. A settled West Indian side won the first two Tests by margins of 204 runs and ten wickets, before rain prevented a result in the final match in Antigua. It was a particularly memorable series for Guyana’s Carl Hooper, whose 178* in the final Test was his first Test century in the Caribbean, and whose 5-40 in Pakistan’s second innings at Port of Spain was the first five-for in a home Test by a West Indian spinner since Derick Parry took 5-15 against a Packer-ravaged Australia on the same ground in 1975/76. A batsman rather less renowned than Hooper also played his part: in scoring 30 in the final Test, Courtney Walsh equalled his highest- ever Test innings (he only passed 20 four times in his 185 Test innings), and helped Hooper in a last-wicket partnership of 106, a new West Indian record for this wicket. Once again the West Indies’ leading players were unable to take part in the domestic Red Stripe Cup because of commitments with the Test and one-day sides elsewhere. This severely hampered the chances of the teams that provided the bulk of the international squad, notably the Leeward Islands and Trinidad & Tobago. The outcome was that the Cup was won by the fourth different side in the last four years – Guyana, whose four wins in five matches gave them a substantial lead over the rest of the field. Their opener Clayton Lambert scored a competition-record 263* against the Windward Islands, beating fellow-Guyanese Roy Fredericks’ previous record of 250 set in