The Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (TTCB) is en­cour­ag­ing the coun­try’s young crick­eters to de­vel­op a greater ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the longer for­mat of the game as the foun­da­tion for pro­duc­ing fu­ture West In­dies play­ers.

TTCB pres­i­dent Az­im Bas­sarath made the call on Wednes­day night while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the TTCB Pre­mier­ship Awards at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Velo­drome in Bal­main, Cou­va.

Bas­sarath said the path­way to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Force be­gins at the do­mes­tic lev­el and urged play­ers to em­brace the chal­lenges of the longer for­mat.

“The Red Force does not be­gin at the re­gion­al lev­el. It be­gins here. It be­gins in our clubs. It be­gins in our nets. It be­gins on our lo­cal grounds. It be­gins in the Pre­mier League, and it be­gins with play­ers like those who we are cel­e­brat­ing here this evening,” Bas­sarath said.

He ac­knowl­edged the im­por­tance of T20 and oth­er short­er for­mats but stressed that young play­ers should not lose sight of the val­ue of longer-form crick­et.

“There is some­thing dif­fer­ent about hav­ing to bat for a long pe­ri­od. There is some­thing dif­fer­ent about bowl­ing spell af­ter spell. There is some­thing dif­fer­ent about com­ing back the next morn­ing and start­ing again,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to Bas­sarath, play­ing the longer for­mat teach­es crick­eters pa­tience, con­cen­tra­tion, adapt­abil­i­ty and re­silience, qual­i­ties he be­lieves are es­sen­tial for those as­pir­ing to rep­re­sent the West In­dies.

“We need bats­men who can build in­nings. We need bowlers who can build pres­sure. We need play­ers who can con­cen­trate for long pe­ri­ods. We need play­ers who can adapt. We need play­ers who can fight,” he said.

Bas­sarath al­so quot­ed for­mer West In­dies bats­man Shiv­nar­ine Chan­der­paul, who de­scribed Test crick­et as “the ul­ti­mate form of the game”, while re­call­ing for­mer West In­dies cap­tain Vi­vian Richards’ de­scrip­tion of Test crick­et as the ul­ti­mate ex­am­i­na­tion for any crick­eter.

He said Trinidad and To­ba­go must con­tin­ue de­vel­op­ing play­ers ca­pa­ble of meet­ing those chal­lenges.

Mean­while, the cer­e­mo­ny was to recog­nise the out­stand­ing play­ers and their per­for­mances dur­ing the 2026 sea­son in all TTCB com­pe­ti­tions.

Evin Lewis of Best Mo­tors Marchin Pa­tri­ots was named the Best Bats­man of Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion 1 af­ter scor­ing 655 runs, while the Best Bowler award was shared by his club­mate Ricky Jaipaul and Queen’s Park Crick­et Club’s Bryan Charles, af­ter both play­ers took 48 wick­ets each.

In Pre­mier­ship 2 North, Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice Crick­et Club bats­man Bri­an Christ­mas was recog­nised as the Best Bats­man af­ter scor­ing 402 runs. Ale­scon Comets’ Alex An­toine was named Best Bowler af­ter claim­ing 46 wick­ets.

Cal­drac Club’s Sai­ba Ba­toos­ingh was the stand­out bats­man in Pre­mier­ship 2 South, scor­ing an im­pres­sive 695 runs.

The Best Bowler award in the South was shared by Club San­do’s Stephen Shadick and HSM En­deav­our’s Adri­an Coop­er, who both took 49 wick­ets.

SporTT CEO Arnold Ram, the event’s guest speak­er, said the per­for­mances of the award win­ners high­light­ed the strength of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s do­mes­tic crick­et.

Ram not­ed that many of the play­ers who have dis­tin­guished them­selves at the re­gion­al lev­el have al­so pro­duced out­stand­ing per­for­mances in the Pre­mier­ship.

He said the Red Force’s suc­cess was “in no small mea­sure a re­flec­tion of the high cal­i­bre of crick­eters com­pet­ing in the pre­mier di­vi­sion and the strong foun­da­tion that our do­mes­tic com­pe­ti­tion pro­vides for the de­vel­op­ment of elite tal­ent.”

Ram al­so stressed the im­por­tance of con­tin­ued in­vest­ment in lo­cal com­pe­ti­tions and chal­lenged the TTCB to strength­en its re­la­tion­ship with the pri­vate sec­tor to pro­vide ad­di­tion­al sup­port to clubs.

He said club of­fi­cials of­ten make sig­nif­i­cant sac­ri­fices to re­tain play­ers and meet their fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions, in­clud­ing en­sur­ing ath­letes are prop­er­ly fed and sup­port­ed.

“Greater col­lab­o­ra­tion with the pri­vate sec­tor can help ease some of these pres­sures and, more im­por­tant­ly, al­low our clubs to fo­cus on what they do best, de­vel­op play­ers, build com­mu­ni­ties and con­tribute to the con­tin­ued growth of crick­et in this coun­try,” Ram said.

The awards there­fore cel­e­brat­ed in­di­vid­ual ex­cel­lence while high­light­ing the im­por­tance of the do­mes­tic Pre­mier­ship as the foun­da­tion for Trinidad and To­ba­go and West In­dies crick­et.