This article describes the history of West Indies cricket from 1971 to 1980.
The West Indies cricket team was in transition as the 1970s began and it suffered a humiliating series defeat on the 1975–76 tour of Australia. New captain Clive Lloyd was determined that such a defeat must never happen again and decided that the lessons of that tour must be learned. On the 1975–76 tour, the difference between the two teams was the aggressive pace bowling of Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee. Lloyd decided that West Indies must nurture its own pace battery to create similar havoc among its opponents. The emergence of Andy Roberts and Michael Holding at this time ensured that the first implementation of the new policy on the 1976 tour of England was a success. West Indies could still produce great batsmen too and few have been better than Viv Richards.
The combination of outstanding pace bowling and top-class batting enabled West Indies to dominate world cricket for more than 15 years until the 1990s.
Trinidad and Tobago, captained by Joey Carew, retained their Shell Shield title. They beat Combined Islands and Barbados, and drew with Jamaica and Guyana.
The Beaumont Cup, a first-class knock-out competition competed for by North Trinidad, South Trinidad, Central Trinidad and East Trinidad, was retained by North Trinidad when the final between themselves and East Trinidad was drawn. This was the first season in which the competition had been expanded to four teams. From its inception in 1926, only North and South Trinidad had previously competed.
Position | Team | Played | Won | Lost | DWF | DLF | Points |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pts | – | – | 12 | 0 | 6 | 2 | – |
1 | Trinidad and Tobago | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 32 |
2 | Jamaica | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 28 |
3 | Barbados | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 18 |
4 | Guyana | 4 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 14 |
5 | Combined Islands | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 12 |
Note: DWF = drawn, won on first innings. LWF = drawn, lost on first innings.
1970–71 West Indian cricket season – leading batsmen by average | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Name | Innings | Runs | Highest | Average | 100s | |
Sunil Gavaskar | 16 | 1169 | 220 | 97.41 | 5 | |
Garry Sobers | 15 | 889 | 178* | 74.08 | 4 | |
Dilip Sardesai | 13 | 883 | 212 | 67.92 | 3 | |
Richard de Souza | 9 | 336 | 95 | 67.20 | 0 | |
Desmond Lewis | 13 | 652 | 96 | 65.20 | 0 |
1970–71 West Indian cricket season – leading bowlers by average | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Name | Balls | Maidens | Runs | Wickets | Average | |
Norbert Phillip | 821 | 36 | 297 | 17 | 17.47 | |
Pascall Roberts | 1119 | 71 | 331 | 16 | 20.68 | |
Prince Bartholomew | 1290 | 42 | 593 | 27 | 21.96 | |
Uton Dowe | 1554 | 54 | 773 | 33 | 23.42 | |
John Shepherd | 1068 | 45 | 405 | 17 | 23.82 |
Qualification: 10 or more wickets.
India defeated West Indies by one match to nil, with four matches drawn. Their win came in the second Test, at Port-of-Spain. It was their first win in 25 Tests between the two countries. Sunil Gavaskar, aged twenty-one and in his first Test series, scored 774 runs in four Tests, at an average of 154.80. Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan took 22 wickets at 33.91.
The Queen's Park Oval is a sports stadium in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, used mostly for cricket matches. It opened in 1896. Privately owned by the Queen's Park Cricket Club, it is currently the second largest capacity cricket ground in the West Indies with seating for about 20,000.
Sir Everton DeCourcy Weekes, KCMG, GCM, OBE was a cricketer from Barbados. A right-handed batsman, he was known as one of the hardest hitters in world cricket. Weekes holds the record for consecutive Test hundreds, with five. Along with Frank Worrell and Clyde Walcott, he formed what was known as "The Three Ws" of the West Indies cricket team. Weekes played in 48 Test matches for the West Indies cricket team from 1948 to 1958. He continued to play first-class cricket until 1964, surpassing 12,000 first-class runs in his final innings. As a coach he was in charge of the Canadian team at the 1979 Cricket World Cup, and he was also a commentator and international match referee.
Lancelot Richard Gibbs is a former West Indies cricketer, one of the most successful spin bowlers in Test cricket history. He took 309 Test wickets, only the second player to pass 300, the first spinner to pass that milestone, and had an exceptional economy rate of under two runs per over.
The Barbados national cricket team is the national cricket team of Barbados, organised by the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA). Barbados is a member of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), which is a member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in its own right, and Barbadians play internationally for the West Indies cricket team.
Steven Barry Smith is a former Australian and New South Wales cricketer. He played in three Test matches and 28 One Day Internationals between 1983 and 1985, taking part in tours of Sri Lanka, the West Indies, and India.
The West Indies cricket team, nicknamed the Windies, is a multi-national men's cricket team representing the mainly English-speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean region and administered by Cricket West Indies. The players on this composite team are selected from a chain of fifteen Caribbean nation-states and territories. As of 13 May 2021, the West Indies cricket team is ranked seventh in Tests and ninth in both ODIs and T20Is in the official ICC rankings.
Claude Vibart Wight was a West Indian cricketer who played two Tests in the 1920s and 1930s.
Lord Brackley's XI was the fifth team of English cricketers to tour the West Indies, playing in the 1904–05 season. The team was captained by John Egerton, 4th Earl of Ellesmere and played a total of 20 matches between January and April 1905, of which ten are regarded as first-class.
This article describes the history of cricket in the West Indies from 1919 to 1945.
This article describes the history of West Indies cricket from 1946 to 1970.
This article describes the history of West Indies cricket from 1981 to 1990.
This article describes the history of West Indies cricket from 1991 to 2000.
This article describes the history of West Indies cricket from 2000–01. West Indian cricket has struggled in the early 21st century.
Hugh Cortez Jordan was a Test cricket umpire between 1953 and 1974. In total, he oversaw 22 Test matches, all in the Caribbean and involving the West Indies team.
The India national cricket team toured the West Indies from April to June 2002 to play 5 Test matches and 5 Limited Overs Internationals.
The Barbados Cricket Buckle is a repoussé engraving on a belt buckle of a slave playing cricket in Barbados circa 1780–1810. It is believed to be the only known image of a slave playing cricket and is thought to be the oldest surviving artifact depicting cricket outside the British Isles.
The Australian cricket team toured the Caribbean from February to April 1999 to play four Tests and seven One Day Internationals (ODIs) against the West Indies. Australia additionally played three first-class matches, winning two and drawing one. The Test series was drawn 2–2 resulting in the Frank Worrell Trophy remaining in Australia. The ODI series was also drawn with three wins each and one tie. This was the first four-match series in the history of Test cricket to finish as a two-all draw. The only other four-match Test series, as of January 2022, to finish with the same result was England at home to Pakistan in 2016.
An English cricket team raised by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) toured the West Indies from January to March 1926 and played twelve first-class matches, including three against the West Indies cricket team which had not then achieved Test status. MCC, who were captained by Freddie Calthorpe, played their matches at Kensington Oval, Bridgetown; Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain; Bourda, Georgetown; Sabina Park, Kingston; and Melbourne Park, also in Kingston. In the matches between the West Indies and MCC, the first in Bridgetown was drawn; MCC won by 5 wickets in Port of Spain; and the final match in Georgetown was drawn.