In the land­scape of youth sports in Trinidad and To­ba­go, bal­anc­ing a sin­gle ath­let­ic dis­ci­pline along­side rig­or­ous aca­d­e­mics is a feat in it­self. Man­ag­ing two dis­tinct sports as a na­tion­al play­er while prepar­ing for the de­mands of Form Five is ex­tra­or­di­nary.

Meet 15-year-old Jan­nah Mo­hammed [JM], a stu­dent at AS­JA Girls’ Col­lege, Charleville. Whether she is hold­ing a crick­et bat or a ta­ble ten­nis rac­quet, Jan­nah is prov­ing that with dis­ci­pline, fam­i­ly ground­ing, and an un­yield­ing work eth­ic, the bound­aries of youth achieve­ment can be con­tin­u­al­ly re­drawn.

In this in­ter­view, Jan­nah pro­vides an in­sight in­to the per­son be­hind the play­er, dis­cussing her per­for­mances, sup­port sys­tem, goals, and the chal­lenges of bal­anc­ing dual-sport ex­cel­lence.

Q: Tell us, who is Jan­nah Mo­hammed

A: My name is Jan­nah Mo­hammed, I am 15 years old, and I am a Form Five stu­dent at AS­JA Girls’ Col­lege, Charleville. Out­side of my two sports, I en­joy cook­ing, bak­ing, or even just re­lax­ing and hav­ing some down­time.

How did you get start­ed in ta­ble ten­nis and crick­et?

I start­ed play­ing crick­et at the age of four, as my dad and broth­er were al­ready in­volved and I quick­ly fell in love with it. I be­gan play­ing ta­ble ten­nis at the age of eight when we [Hi­dayah, youngest sib­ling and Za­kriyya, old­er sib­ling] at­tend­ed a Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion camp. Af­ter see­ing us play, the coach begged my mum to keep us in the sport and take it fur­ther. Al­though I en­joy both sports, I would def­i­nite­ly choose crick­et be­cause it is the one I am most pas­sion­ate about and en­joy the most.

What have been some of your proud­est achieve­ments in both sports?

Some of my proud­est achieve­ments in crick­et in­clude scor­ing a record-break­ing 227 not out against Ch­agua­nas North Sec­ondary in the Sec­ondary School Crick­et League [SS­CL] T20 com­pe­ti­tion in 2025, and be­ing named SS­CL Crick­eter of the Year in 2025 and 2026. This year, an­oth­er defin­ing mo­ment was be­ing se­lect­ed to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Un­der-19 Women’s Na­tion­al Team to par­tic­i­pate in the Crick­et West In­dies [CWI] Ris­ing Stars Re­gion­al U19 tour­na­ment in An­tigua, Au­gust 6-16, 2026. This is a ma­jor mile­stone for me, as it was one of the goals I set for my­self this year and some­thing I’ve been look­ing for­ward to since I was a lit­tle girl. This year my club Cal­drac Achiev­ers Women’s Crick­et Club [CAW­CC] won the Trinidad and To­ba­go Women Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion [TTWCA] KFC spon­sored T20 tour­na­ment.

I have rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go four times in ta­ble ten­nis and won sev­er­al medals. How­ev­er, my biggest ac­com­plish­ment so far is win­ning a bronze medal in the Un­der-15 Sin­gles at the 2026 Caribbean Youth Cham­pi­onships and qual­i­fy­ing for the 2026 Pan Amer­i­can Youth Cham­pi­onships. This year has al­so brought some no­table changes; I re­cent­ly joined the pres­ti­gious QPCC Ta­ble Ten­nis Club, where I will con­tin­ue to train and chal­lenge my­self at a high­er lev­el against more ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers.

Who keeps you ground­ed on this jour­ney?

Both my par­ents have played a huge role in help­ing me achieve these mile­stones. They con­stant­ly mo­ti­vate me, help me train, and work hard to en­sure I have every­thing I need to per­form at my best. Dri­ven by a strong foun­da­tion of prop­er di­et, reg­u­lar ex­er­cise, and ded­i­cat­ed train­ing, I cred­it them with in­still­ing the es­sen­tial dis­ci­plines need­ed for long-term suc­cess. My sup­port sys­tem, how­ev­er, goes be­yond my par­ents. I was blessed with won­der­ful grand­par­ents whose love, en­cour­age­ment, and un­wa­ver­ing sup­port have played a sig­nif­i­cant role in my jour­ney.

How do you bal­ance school­work and train­ing for both sports?

Bal­anc­ing school and train­ing can def­i­nite­ly be chal­leng­ing—train­ing for two sports at a com­pet­i­tive lev­el, hav­ing school, ex­tra lessons, and as­sign­ments all in one day some­times. This can be de­mand­ing; how­ev­er, with prop­er time man­age­ment and dis­ci­pline, it is pos­si­ble to bal­ance both suc­cess­ful­ly.

Do girls and women have a right to play sports and why?

I be­lieve it is very im­por­tant for young peo­ple to get in­volved in a sport­ing dis­ci­pline. Sports help de­vel­op valu­able life skills such as team­work, dis­ci­pline, lead­er­ship, and time man­age­ment, which can be ben­e­fi­cial in their lives and fu­ture ca­reers. They do not nec­es­sar­i­ly need to play at a com­pet­i­tive lev­el to at­tain these ben­e­fits; sim­ply be­ing in­volved can help.

I be­lieve fe­males have a right to play and com­pete in sports. Sports em­pow­ers women, as in both phys­i­cal and men­tal de­vel­op­ment, and keeps us healthy. It builds con­fi­dence, teach­es vi­tal skills, and cre­ates op­por­tu­ni­ties for fu­ture ca­reers. I al­so strong­ly be­lieve women should be giv­en the same op­por­tu­ni­ties in sports as men. How­ev­er, we con­tin­ue to see both me­dia cov­er­age and salaries favour­ing the men’s sports. I hope that one day, we as women can have equal op­por­tu­ni­ties as men across the board.

What are your fu­ture goals?

My sport­ing goals for the fu­ture are to rep­re­sent the West In­dies U-19 team, the T&T Se­nior Women’s team, and ul­ti­mate­ly the West In­dies Se­nior team. I know this re­quires a tremen­dous amount of train­ing and ded­i­ca­tion, but I am en­tire­ly up for the chal­lenge. Out­side of sport, I hope to be­come a mas­sage ther­a­pist and phys­io­ther­a­pist. In my opin­ion, en­ter­ing this field will al­low me to per­fect­ly bal­ance a pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer along­side my crick­et ca­reer/jour­ney.

What are the core val­ues that keep you fo­cused?

One quote that I al­ways try to live by is, ‘Hard work beats tal­ent every time.’ My ad­vice to youths in sport is to keep work­ing to­wards your goals, even when things don’t seem to be go­ing your way. Al­ways re­mem­ber to stay fo­cused, keep work­ing, and keep be­liev­ing in your­self. Nev­er give up, be­cause even­tu­al­ly your hard work WILL pay off.

Thank you, and I wish you con­tin­ued suc­cess.