MAN­CHES­TER – Cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er said Thurs­day West In­dies were ful­ly aware of the stakes in­volved and were re­solved to pro­duce an im­proved per­for­mance, as they pre­pared for Fri­day’s start of the do-or-die fi­nal Test at Old Traf­ford.

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos – Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) are eye­ing Sep­tem­ber as a pos­si­ble win­dow for the host­ing of South Africa’s resched­uled tour of the Caribbean but said the stag­ing of the In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL) would be the fi­nal de­ter­mi­nant of when the se­ries will be played.

MAN­CHES­TER – As­sis­tant coach Rod­dy Es­t­wick has un­der­scored the im­por­tance of the de­ci­sive Test match start­ing here Fri­day, re­mind­ing West In­dies that his­to­ry was with­in their grasp once they man­aged to pro­duce a “big per­for­mance” to trounce Eng­land at Old Traf­ford.

Eng­land and the West In­dies will com­pete for a new Richards-Both­am Tro­phy when they next meet in a Men’s Test se­ries to pay trib­ute to two of their great­est play­ers whose ri­val­ry and friend­ship em­bod­ies the close re­la­tion­ship and mu­tu­al re­spect be­tween the two sides.

Chloe Bain emerged the top rid­er in the USEF Train­ing Lev­el Test 3, win­ning the se­nior class aboard Romeo when the T&T Eques­tri­an As­so­ci­a­tion (TTEA) host­ed its Dres­sage League two com­pe­ti­tion.

Bit­ter­ly dis­ap­point­ing. Per­haps that’s the best way to de­scribe the West In­dies’ per­for­mance in the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed sec­ond Test match ver­sus Eng­land.

The in­au­gur­al Chief Sec­re­tary Bago T10 Tour­na­ment will bowl off on Fri­day at the Cyd Gray Com­plex in Rox­bor­ough, To­ba­go from 5 pm.

T&T se­nior women's team vol­ley­baller Chan­non Thomp­son says she is run­ning out of op­tions with re­gards to her at­tempts to get a re­ply from the Gov­ern­ment on an ex­emp­tion re­quest to re­turn home from Ger­many.

Andy Ruiz bat­ted ef­fort­less­ly to guide Mon­te­co Drifters to a 10-wick­et vic­to­ry over Jag­gan Unit­ed in Tues­day night's match pro­gramme in the Mon­te­co Cre­ations’ Ty­ro Sports 45 and Over Wind­ball T10 Crick­et League played at Gab­ba grounds in Bourg Mu­la­tresse in Low­er San­ta Cruz.

One man who was ex­treme­ly con­fi­dent of the vic­to­ry last Sat­ur­day was train­er Harold Chadee. The top con­di­tion­er sad­dled Re­gal In­ten­sion to win the first jew­el of lo­cal Rac­ing 'Triple Crown,' the Guineas, last sea­son, was con­fi­dent that his charge would get the job done.

MAN­CHES­TER, Eng­land – Out-of-form Shai Hope could be a doubt for the de­ci­sive third Test start­ing Fri­day, af­ter head coach Phil Sim­mons ad­mit­ted Mon­day he was “con­cerned” by the right-han­der’s run of low scores.

Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) has come good on their promise and has re­paid the Eng­land Crick­et Board (ECB) the US$3M (TT$20.2m) loan that the or­gan­i­sa­tion got in May to help set­tle play­ers' out­stand­ing salaries.