The open­ing of the 2026 FI­FA World Cup left some To­bag­o­ni­ans dis­ap­point­ed as hopes of an African team lift­ing the cov­et­ed tro­phy took an ear­ly blow.

OSLO—Saint Lu­cia’s track queen Julien Al­fred cel­e­brat­ed her 25th birth­day in grand style by cap­tur­ing gold in the 100m at the Di­a­mond League’s Bislett Games in Nor­way on Wednes­day.

CARDIFF – West In­dies Women’s vice-cap­tain Chinelle Hen­ry is still un­der­go­ing treat­ment from the in­jury she sus­tained dur­ing Wednes­day’s warmup match against Aus­tralia in Wales.

KINGSTON – Pac­ers Ja­son Hold­er and Shamar Joseph starred with the ball, while Shai Hope played a cap­tain’s knock to guide West In­dies to a thrilling sev­en-wick­et vic­to­ry over Sri Lan­ka in the open­ing T20I in Ja­maica on Thurs­day.

Trinidad and To­ba­go se­nior men’s foot­ball team will take on Unit­ed Soc­cer League Cham­pi­onship out­fit Louisville City FC in an in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match on Ju­ly 25 at the Lynn Fam­i­ly Sta­di­um in Louisville, Ken­tucky, USA, as the na­tion­al foot­ballers con­tin­ue their in­ter­na­tion­al prepa­ra­tions.

FOXBOR­OUGH, Unit­ed States – Haiti has been forced to change the de­sign of its World Cup kit three days be­fore their open­ing match against Scot­land.

HAM­BAN­TO­TA – Jo­hann Layne pro­duced a fiery spell to rat­tle Sri Lan­ka Emerg­ing Play­ers, but an un­bro­ken sixth-wick­et stand of 82 be­tween An­jala Ban­dara and Pulin­du Per­era steered the hosts to 173 for five at stumps on the third day of their four-day con­test against West In­dies Acad­e­my Sri Lan­ka on Wednes­day.

At long last, af­ter what felt like an eter­ni­ty of wait­ing, we can fi­nal­ly say the mag­ic words: the his­toric, 48-team 2026 FI­FA World Cup starts to­day.

HAM­BAN­TO­TA – An­jala Ban­dara scored his sec­ond cen­tu­ry of the match to en­sure Sri Lan­ka Emerg­ing Play­ers shared the spoils with West In­dies Acad­e­my in the open­ing four-day ‘Test’ in Sri Lan­ka on Thurs­day.

DUBAI, UAE – The Desert Vipers’ quar­tet of West In­di­an tal­ent could prove to be the fran­chise’s se­cret weapon in next month’s Exxon­Mo­bil Guyana Glob­al Su­per League (GSL), ac­cord­ing to Bar­ba­di­an all-rounder Kyle May­ers.

CARDIFF – West In­dies vice-cap­tain Chinelle Hen­ry was stretchered off the field dur­ing a warm-up match against Aus­tralia at Sophia Gar­dens in Wales on Wednes­day, cast­ing a dark cloud over the team’s prepa­ra­tions for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.

T&T’s se­nior foot­ballers suc­cumbed to a 3-0 de­feat to Rus­sia in their sec­ond in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match at the Kalin­ingrad Are­na in Rus­sia on Tuesday. And had it not been for the hero­ics of goal­keep­er Den­zil Smith be­tween the posts, the mar­gin of de­feat would have been even wider.