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

7 West Indies in 1989/90 The West Indies’ Test side embarked on the 1989/90 season as the unquestioned World Champions – unbeaten in their past 18 series going back to 1980, and unbeaten at home in any series since 1972/73. The mould was not broken in their only Test series of the season, but for a while it looked as though it might be. Between late February and mid-May, West Indies were due to play a five-match home series against England. In the end only four matches got under way, the second game, scheduled for the notoriously rain-susceptible Bourda ground in Georgetown, becoming only the fifth Test match ever to be completely lost to the elements. England had lost their last three series against West Indies by a total score of 14 matches to nil, so their nine-wicket win in the first Test at Kingston was something of a surprise. They might have gone 2-0 up at Port of Spain, but a combination of last-day rain and a controversially-engineered slow over-rate by the home bowlers saw England finish 31 runs short of their victory target. Injury in this match to England captain Graham Gooch meant a stand-in captain – Allan Lamb – led for the last two matches of the series. Those two matches saw the form-book finally regain the upper hand, as the home side won both games comfortably to take the series by a 2-1 margin. Their 164-run winning margin in the fourth Test exactly matched the score made in his maiden Test century by Carlisle Best, playing on home turf in Barbados: it proved to be the only century of his Test career. In the final Test at St John’s, only Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes made a score higher than 42 for either side; but they opened the West Indian batting with scores of 149 and 167 respectively, paving the way to an innings victory. Their stand of 298 was to remain the highest in the 148 innings in which they opened together for West Indies. Predictably, not a single wicket in the series fell to a spinner, with Ian Bishop (21) and Curtly Ambrose (20, in three Tests) leading the wicket-takers for West Indies, and Devon Malcolm (19) and Gladstone Small (17) doing so for England. For England, Lamb hit two centuries, while Greenidge and Haynes led the runscorers for the victors. Future England captains Alec Stewart and Nasser Hussain made little impression in their debut Test series. The domestic first-class season began early, with three matches in Guyana’s inter-county competition – formerly the Jones Cup and then the Guystac Trophy, but rechristened this season as the Kenneth Sookram Memorial Trophy – scheduled for late October and early November. But the two matches of the competition’s Cinderella side, Essequibo, were rained off, and the only game played was between the old rivals Berbice and Demerara. Demerara won by eight wickets in what was to prove the last first-class match in this competition, as that status was withdrawn for future seasons by the WI Board in May 1990. (See Volume 5 of this series for further details.) The principal domestic competition continued as the Red Stripe Cup, as it had been known since 1987/88. Contested as an all-play-all round robin, each of the six competing sides was due to play five matches; but once again rain intervened, and three of the scheduled 15 matches were totally washed out. Not that this affected the Leeward Islands side, who were able to complete, and win, all five of their matches, thus becoming the first team to achieve a 100% record since this became a six-team competition in 1981/82. This was the Leewards’ first domestic title, but their success was hardly a surprise for a side that included the likes of Viv Richards, Richie Richardson and Curtly Ambrose among its regulars (although Richards was out with a broken finger for much of the competition). As it was a requirement of the Board that only those who played in the domestic competition were eligible for Test selection, the bigger surprise was perhaps that the Leewards’ side, with its strong base in players from Antigua, had not won it before.