ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2015

West Indies in 2014/15 In the sometimes troubled history of Caribbean cricket, there can surely have been no bleaker day than 17 October 2014, when the entire West Indies team walked out in the middle of a tour of India. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the players’ grievance with a proposed new contract, the over-riding point is that the walkout did terrible harm to the best interests, and the good name, of West Indian cricket. Matters were smoothed over sufficiently for a West Indies side consisting of mostly the same players to fulfil their remaining Test engagements: three matches in South Africa; three at home to England; and (in 2015) two at home to Australia. South Africa, reigning Test champions, unsurprisingly won 2-0, but the rubber against England resulted in a well-fought 1-1 draw, although this more encouraging result was followed by two resounding defeats at the hands of Australia. The outcome was that by the end of the 2015 season West Indies remained in eighth place, not too far behind Sri Lanka and still well ahead of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in the bottom two places. Last year’s Annual unfortunately failed to note a change in the domestic competition: whereas, in 2012/13, the title had been decided by the semi-finals and finals at the end of the regular league season, in 2013/14 the title went to the side heading the league, and the knockout matches were a separate competition for the Headley-Weekes Trophy. Accordingly, Barbados should have been saluted as 2013/14 champions. At least there was no scope for similar confusion in 2014/15. The domestic season was reorganised again on a league basis only, with no semi-finals or final. It was played in a home-and-away format, with the number of teams cut from seven to six by the exclusion of Combined Colleges and Campuses. The other sides were designated as franchises, free in theory to recruit players from anywhere. In practice, however, they relied almost wholly on local talent. Guyana emerged as convincing winners, with eight victories in their ten matches; a remarkable turnaround after finishing bottom, and winless, in 2013/14. This time, Guyana’s sole defeat was at the hands of runners-up (and defending champions) Barbados, who snatched a sensational win by 2 runs after being forced to follow on. Guyana had last won the title outright as long ago as 1992/93. It was Guyana’s spinners, left-armer Veerasammy Permaul and leggie Devendra Bishoo, who carried all before them in the four-day competition, claiming respectively 67 wickets at 14.07 and 61 at 17.06. Guyana’s leading run-scorer was the veteran Shivnarine Chanderpaul with 539 at an average of 44.91, but the competition aggregates were headed by Devon Smith of Windward Islands, with 822 at 54.80. (JCB) Regional Four-Day Tournament 2014/15: Final table P W L D BatBP BowBP Pts 12 0 3 1 Guyana 10 8 1 1 21 28 148 2 Barbados 10 5 1 4 18 27 117 3 Windward Islands 10 5 4 1 23 23 109 4 Jamaica 10 3 5 2 6 27 75 5 Trinidad and Tobago 10 2 6 2 10 25 65 6 Leeward Islands 10 2 8 0 6 24 54 541