 | |
| Personnel | |
|---|---|
| Captain | Unknown |
| Coach | Jeff Lane |
| Team information | |
| Colours | Blue, green |
| Home ground | Salem Oval |
| History | |
| Four Day wins | n/a |
| WICB Cup wins | n/a |
| Twenty20 wins | 0 |
| Official website | Montserrat Cricket Association |
TheMontserrat national cricket team is the representativecricket team of theBritish Overseas Territory ofMontserrat. The team is not a member of theInternational Cricket Council, but the Montserrat Cricket Association is a member of theLeeward Islands Cricket Association, which itself is a member association of theWest Indies Cricket Board, and players from Montserrat generally represent theLeeward Islands cricket team at domestic level and theWest Indies at international level. Montserrat has however played as a separate entity in matches which heldTwenty20 status, but has not appeared infirst-class orList A cricket. The team was previously coached by Abdiel Hughes, who was appointed in April 2012.[1] Their formercaptain wasMcPherson Meade.[2]
A Montserrat cricket team first appeared in West Indian cricket in the 1912/13 Hesketh Bell Shield againstAntigua at theAntigua Recreation Ground.[3] As the West Indies were yet to be grantedTest status, this match did not holdfirst-class status. The team next appeared in the 1922/23 tournament against the same opposition, before appearing twice more in the 1925/26 competition againstDominica and Antigua, which was the year in which the team was first recorded as playing atSturge Park inPlymouth.[3] The following year, they appeared in the 1927 competition, playing against Dominica and in the 1932 competition, where they played againstSaint Kitts.[3]
There is a long gap between that match and Montserrat's next recorded appearance, which came in the 1969 Hesketh Bell Shield againstNevis.[3] The following year,Jim Allen, considered Monterrat's greatest sportsman,[4] debuted for the island. However, he would not become the islands first first-class cricketer, asWilliam Duberry had played for the Leeward Islands in February 1967. Montserrat took part in the Hesketh Bell Shield and its replacement tournament, the Heineken Challenge Trophy, throughout most of the 1970s and the 1980s.[3] Their participation in the tournament continued into the 1990s, with matches home throughout this period being held at Sturge Park, which has also held first-class cricket on six occasions up to 1994.[5] From 1995, Montserrat was devastated by eruptions fromSoufrière Hills. An eruption in 1997 destroyed Plymouth, with the resultingpyroclastic flows and ash fall from the eruption also destroying the main ground at Sturge Park, leaving the Montserratian team without first-class facilities.
However, the team continued to play on in regional tournaments in the late 1990s. By 2000, the team had a new home ground, theSalem Oval atSalem, where first-class cricket has since returned to on three occasions.[6] Most notably, the Salem cricket ground was host to an International ODI match between the West Indies and South Africa on April 12, 2001. Having played in regional tournaments throughout the early to mid 2000s, Montserrat were invited to take part in the2006 Stanford 20/20, whose matches held officialTwenty20 status.[7]Allan Stanford gave US$100,000 for their participation.[8] They played one match in the tournament againstGuyana, which they lost to their first-class opponents by 8 wickets, resulting in their elimination from the tournament.[9] Two years later, they were invited to take part in the2008 Stanford 20/20,[8] playing and defeating theTurks and Caicos Islands in a preliminary match, before losing toNevis in the following round.[9] In that same year,Lionel Baker became the first Montserratian to playOne Day International and Test cricket for the West Indies.[10]
