The 1971–72 Shell Shield season was the fifth edition of what is now the

Regional Four Day Competition The Regional Four Day Competition, formerly known as Shell Shield and Carib Beer Cup, is the First Class Cricket, first-class cricket competition in the West Indian cricket team, West Indies. It is administered by the Cricket West Indies. In t ...

, the domestic

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

competition for the countries of the

West Indies Cricket Board Cricket West Indies (CWI) is the governing body for cricket in the West Indies (a sporting confederation of over a dozen mainly English-speaking Caribbean countries and dependencies that once formed the British West Indies). It was originally ...

(WICB). The tournament was sponsored by

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...

, with matches played from 21 January to 3 March 1972. Five teams contested the competition –

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...

, the Combined Islands,

Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

, and

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

. Barbados were undefeated, winning three of their four matches and drawing the other to claim a third title (and first since the 1966–67 season). Jamaican batsman Maurice Foster led the tournament in runs, while Barbadian fast bowler

Vanburn Holder Vanburn Alonzo Holder (born 10 October 1945) is a Barbadian former first-class cricketer who played in 40 Test matches and 12 One Day Internationals for the West Indies cricket team between 1969 and 1979. A fast-medium bowler, he bowled along ...

was the leading wicket-taker.

Points table

;Key * W – Outright win (12 points) * L – Outright loss (0 points) * LWF – Lost, but won first innings (4 points) * DWF – Drawn, but won first innings (6 points) * DLF – Drawn, but lost first innings (2 points) * Pts – Total points

Statistics

Most runs

The top five run-scorers are included in this table, listed by runs scored and then by

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

Most wickets

The top five wicket-takers are listed in this table, listed by wickets taken and then by

bowling average In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...

.Bowling in Shell Shield 1971/72
– CricketArchive. Retrieved 1 April 2016.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1971-72 Shell Shield season West Indian cricket seasons from 1970–71 to 1999–2000 1972 in West Indian cricket Regional Four Day Competition seasons Domestic cricket competitions in 1971–72