Trinidad and To­ba­go Un­der-17 crick­eters, led by all-rounder Bren­dan Boodoo, lift­ed their first youth ti­tle for 2024 win­ning the Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) U-17 Ris­ing Stars 50-Over Cham­pi­onship, af­ter their match against Bar­ba­dos end­ed in no re­sult at In­shan Ali Park, Preysal, Cou­va, on Mon­day.

The na­tion­al U-17 team fol­lowed the U-15 squad in 2023, al­so led by Boodoo who played un­beat­en to win their CWI Ris­ing Stars U-15 Tour­na­ment.

The U-17 tour­na­ment is the last of the Ris­ing Stars tour­na­ments, fol­low­ing the U-15 (Dur­ing the East­er va­ca­tion) and the U-19 (Dur­ing the Ju­ly-Au­gust va­ca­tion).

Boodoo was in­stru­men­tal with both bat and ball as he led from the front with fig­ures of six for 22 in the win against Guyana in the 50-Over com­pe­ti­tion. His 52 saved his team from de­feat against the Guyanese in the Two-Day for­mat among the fine per­for­mances dur­ing the cam­paign.

Com­ing in­to the match yes­ter­day, T&T brought in 18 points, three points ahead of Bar­ba­dos (15).

The home team was sent to bat and strug­gled to 23 for three with Samir Sa­roop (1), Ryan Year­wood (1) and Joseph Men­doza (5) all back in the pavil­ion.

But Dar­rius Ba­toos­ingh’s good form con­tin­ued with 29 and shared in a 54-run part­ner­ship with Boodoo, who scored 30, which re­paired the dam­age.

Af­ter the quick wick­ets of both bats­men, Chris­t­ian Lall took over and scored 46. His part­ner­ship with Re­nal­do Fournil­li­er (11) last­ed 36 runs and a fur­ther part­ner­ship of 37 runs with Cris­t­ian Ra­manan (10) helped the hosts post 159 all out in 46.4 overs.

Bar­ba­dos, in re­ply, reached 28 for one in five overs.

The no re­sult meant that T&T got to two points and the 0.2 bonus points to fin­ish with 20.2 points, ahead of Bar­ba­dos with 17.6 points, turn­ing the ta­ble around from the 2023 edi­tion.

Head coach Earnil Ryan, who re­placed Rayad Em­rit, was in full praise of the young team.

"I am hap­py to have been giv­en us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to play this tour­na­ment and be able to coach these bunch of young men here,” said the for­mer na­tion­al se­nior play­er.

“But over the pe­ri­od of just about two months or so com­ing in­to the tour­na­ment, I think peo­ple were short of prac­tice. I know a lot of peo­ple would have been talk­ing about that be­fore. They re­al­ly didn’t give us too much of a chance be­cause our bat­ting wasn’t one to be de­sired.”

De­spite the dis­ap­point­ment of fin­ish­ing fifth in the Two-Day por­tion of the cam­paign, Ryan reaf­firmed he was al­ways con­fi­dent in the short­er for­mat.

“I al­ways be­lieve the short­er ver­sion of the game would have been bet­ter for us for the sim­ple rea­son that we are ac­cus­tomed to play­ing more 50-overs crick­et,” said Ryan.

Bar­ba­dos was the reign­ing cham­pi­ons in both the Two-Day and 50-Over for­mats, fin­ish­ing ahead of T&T via bonus points, as the host coun­try, like the Bar­ba­di­ans, fin­ished the tour­na­ment un­beat­en. Both teams have gone two con­sec­u­tive 50-Over tour­na­ments (2023 and 2024) un­de­feat­ed at the U-17 lev­el.

SUM­MARISED SCORES:

At In­shan Ali Park: Match be­tween T&T and Bar­ba­dos end­ed in a no re­sult.

T&T 159 in 46.4 overs (Chris­t­ian Lall 46, Bren­dan Boodoo 30, Dar­rius Ba­toos­ingh 29, Re­nal­do Fournil­li­er 11, Chris­tiano Ra­manan 10; Zachary Carter 4-20) vs BAR­BA­DOS 29-1 in five overs (Damarko Wig­gins 20).

At the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre: Match be­tween Guyana and Lee­ward Is­lands end­ed in a no re­sult.

GUYANA 171 in 40.5 overs (Vikash Wilkin­son 34, Ram­per­saud Ram­nauth 31, Ro­mario Ramde­holl 23, Afraz Ali Bud­hoo 14, Riyad Lat­iff 13; Is­ra-el Mor­ton 3-34, Ja­heem Clarke 2-20, Mic­ah McKen­zie 2-24) vs LEE­WARD IS­LANDS 35-1 in eight overs (Tanez Fran­cis 17 not out).

At Gilbert Park: Match be­tween Wind­ward Is­lands and Ja­maica aban­doned with­out a ball be­ing bowled.