West Indies Championship

For the most recent season of the competition, see 2022–23 West Indies Championship.

Regional Four Day Competition
Countries West Indies
AdministratorCricket West Indies (CWI)
FormatFirst-class (4-day)
First edition1965–66
Latest edition2023–24
Next edition2024–25
Tournament formatRound robin, semi-finals
Number of teams8
Current championGuyana – 12 titles (plus 1 shared)[1]
Most successfulBarbados – 23 titles (plus 1 shared)[2]
Most runsDevon Smith (Windward Islands) – 11,321[3][4][5]
Most wicketsVeerasammy Permaul (Guyana) – 526[6][7]
2023–24 West Indies Championship

The Regional Four Day Competition,[8] formerly known as the Shell Shield, Red Stripe, Busta and Carib Beer Cup, is the West Indies's first-class cricket competition that's run by Cricket West Indies. In the 2013–2014 season the winner of the tournament was awarded the WICB President's Trophy while the winners of the knockout competition were awarded the George Headley/Everton Weekes trophy.[9] In a few previous seasons the winners of the tournament were awarded the Headley/Weekes trophy. On from the 2016–17 season, the Competition was sponsored by Digicel and was known as the Digicel Four Day Championship.[10] Since 2019–20, the competition has been renamed as the West Indies Championship.[11]

The competition is contested between seven Caribbean teams and, on occasion, touring sides from other countries. Of these sides four of them, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, come from solitary nations. While two other teams, the Leeward Islands and the Windward Islands, previously competed as the Combined Islands, now each being from a myriad of nations. Since the 2007–08 season a Combined Campuses and Colleges cricket team (CCC cricket team) were included in the competition. However, in July 2014 the WICB announced that the CCC cricket team was to be excluded from the upcoming 2014-15 Regional Four Day competition. This came as a series of changes adopted based on the recommendations made in a March 2014 report presented by Richard Pybus, WICB's then director of cricket.[12]

The current structure of the tournament, since the 2014–15 season is a double round-robin league system with the team earning the most points being declared the winner. Prior to this the tournament didn't comprise a knock out stage so teams could potentially both win the tournament. The competition later consisted of a single round-robin league followed by semi-finals and a final. The current champions are Guyana. Barbados have won the most titles with twenty-two outright (and one shared), while Jamaica and Guyana have won the most consecutive titles (five).

  1. ^ "Guyana Harpy Eagles Triump in West Indies Championship". Windies. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  2. ^ "More success for Barbados and Brathwaite". barbadostoday.bb. Barbados Today. 11 June 2022.
  3. ^ "#WICHAMPS: DEVON SMITH CHURNING OUT RUNS LIKE A POPCORN MACHINE". sportsmax.tv. SportsMax. 26 February 2020.
  4. ^ "Devon Smith embraces new role". searchlight.vc. Searchlight. 29 January 2021.
  5. ^ "Devon Smith". windiescricket.com. Cricket West Indies.
  6. ^ "Permaul becomes leading wicket-taker in regional first-class cricket". sportsmax.tv. SportsMax. 17 March 2023.
  7. ^ "Veerasammy Permaul". windiescricket.com. Cricket West Indies.
  8. ^ "Regional Four Day Competition 2008/09". Archived from the original on 10 October 2014. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference WICB 4 day media release was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ "Opportunity knocks says Adams ahead of Digicel 4-Day Tournament". Loop News. 10 October 2017. Retrieved 4 April 2023.
  11. ^ "#WICHAMPS: WEST INDIES CHAMPIONSHIP BOWLS OFF ON THURSDAY 9TH JAN". windiescricket.com. Cricket West Indies. 8 January 2020.
  12. ^ "Combined Campuses and Colleges excluded from WI first-class". ESPNcricinfo.