Батыс Индияның бірінші класты крикет турнирінің тарихы

Domestic cricket tournament
the most recent season of the competition

The Regional Four Day Competition, 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. Since 2019–20, the competition has been renamed as the West Indies Championship. 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. 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).

First class cricket has been played in the West Indies since 1865, when Barbados beat Demerara, later known as British Guiana and now Guyana, at the Garrison Savannah in Bridgetown. During 1891 three teams, namely Barbados, British Guiana and Trinidad and Tobago, took part in the inaugural Inter Colonial Tournament held at the Barbados' Bay Pasture, with Barbados eventually defeating British Guiana in the final by an innings and 55 runs. All three teams won the tournament on more than five occasions. When Jamaica attained first class status, they only played 22 games in their first 30 years as a cricketing side, usually playing touring teams from England. After the West Indies were awarded Test status in 1928, the number of games played by Jamaica increased. During World War II, there was no official Inter Colonial tournament, but matches were still played between the three teams who had competed for it, and this continued after the war, but now also including Jamaica. In 1956, British Guiana hosted a four team knock out tournament, which was repeated five years later but now with the Combined Islands joining in. The final unofficial tournament (which does not appear on records in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack or Cricinfo) was held in 1964, with Barbados, British Guiana, Jamaica and Trinidad competing in a league, which British Guiana won.

The regular competition began in the 1965–66 season, named the Shell Shield (after sponsors Royal Dutch Shell), and the five teams that had contested the 1961 knock out competed in a round robin league, with two home matches and two away matches for each team. This format and name remained until 1981–82, when the Combined Islands were split up into the Leeward and Windward Islands by the West Indies Cricket Board. This meant that the season was lengthened to five games per side. Barbados dominated from the outset, with nine titles won from 1965–66 to 1979–80. The Combined Islands won their first title in 1980–81 after four runners up spots in the preceding six seasons – becoming the last of the five teams to win a title. Barbados won three more titles before the tournament was modified in the 1986–87 season. Where instead of a round robin league, there were now two round robin groups, determined by geography. The league structure was though back into place for the next season. As well the contest was then and there renamed as the Red Stripe Cup with its main sponsor being the Jamaican beer Red Stripe. The semi finals were removed for the 2004–05 as was the West Indies B team with the tournament returning to a six team league. This now consisted of ten home and away matches for each side with a final played between the top two teams. In the 2005–06 season, the league returned to one round robin series where teams each play five games before the top two sides meet in the final. Between 2008 and 2012, Jamaica won the competition for a record five times in a row. The only previous time a team had won the record five times in a row was between 1976 and 1980 when Barbados won the title; however, for that streak, the first title in 1976 was shared between Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago whereas for Jamaica's 2008 2012 streak the title was never shared with any other team. In 2014, the WICB announced major structural changes to the first class cricket competition starting with the exclusion of the Combined Campuses and Colleges team from the competition (in which it had participated since 2007–08). Additionally, it was announced that a franchise system was to be introduced for first class cricket, similar to that of the Caribbean Premier League, with the six territorial teams being able to select players from all over the region and possibly from overseas. The new franchises would be owned by the territorial boards themselves and the teams would still retain their traditional territorial names. A draft system was also introduced, under which each of the territorial boards will be allowed to retain and contract 10 players, with the rest of the region's player pool going into a player draft for the teams to complete their 15 player squads. The regional four day competition itself was extended to a double round robin format and also became part of the WICB's new Professional Cricket League, which also included the NAGICO Super50. The newly extended Regional Four Day Competition will be played on a home and away basis over ten rounds from 14 November 2014 to 23 March 2015. Since 2019–20, the competition has been renamed as the West Indies Championship.

Since the 2014–15 season when Professional Cricket League started the teams have played each other twice in a round robin with the team having the most points at the end of the League being awarded the Championship and the Headley/Weekes Trophy. Points are now awarded similarly to the 2010/11 2014/15 era except that now the concept for points for first innings lead has been abandoned and replaced with bonus points for batting (1 point being awarded in intervals of 50 runs for total scores over 200 for the first 110 overs and up to a maximum of 5 points), bowling (1 point being awarded in intervals of 2 wickets for 3 wickets or more taken in a team's innings for the first 110 overs and up to a maximum of 3 points) and for pace bowling (0.2 points for each wicket taken by designated pace bowlers). Tied matches are now awarded 6 points instead of 8 points and the range of points awarded for drawn matches has been replaced by each team getting 3 points plus the bonus points. For abandoned matches, the points awarded to each team has been reduced from 3 to 1, except where a match is abandoned due to a dangerous pitch, in which case the visiting team are awarded 12 points (as would happen with an outright win).

The previous edition of the tournament was known as the Regional Four Day Competition before being rebranded by CWI. Since 2019–20, the competition has been renamed as the West Indies Championship.