The re­cent Ju­ly 3–4, 2025, vis­it of In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di to Trinidad and To­ba­go brought more than just for­mal agree­ments and hand­shakes; it cre­at­ed new op­por­tu­ni­ties and ex­cite­ment. Among the 15 agree­ments signed, young fe­male crick­eters from T&T now have the great chance to re­ceive train­ing in In­dia.

This op­por­tu­ni­ty comes at a crit­i­cal time. Women’s crick­et has re­cent­ly ex­pe­ri­enced a surge in pop­u­lar­i­ty; how­ev­er, ac­cess to qual­i­ty coach­ing, fa­cil­i­ties, and match op­por­tu­ni­ties still faces sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges. For ex­am­ple, in T&T, men and women share the same train­ing space at the Na­tion­al Crick­et Cen­tre (Bal­main, Cou­va). Al­though ef­forts are made to pro­vide equal ac­cess, fe­male crick­eters of­ten have to give up fa­cil­i­ties due to dou­ble book­ings.

With an ICC (In­tern­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil) Un­der-19 World Cup held every two years—the next sched­uled in Nepal and Bangladesh in 2027—and Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) plan­ning to launch its first re­gion­al U-16 women’s tour­na­ment in 2026, this chance for young play­ers to ac­cess train­ing fa­cil­i­ties and coach­es in In­dia will great­ly sup­port their per­son­al and col­lec­tive de­vel­op­ment. Cur­rent­ly, In­dia is one of the fastest-grow­ing women’s crick­et teams, dri­ven by the Women’s Pre­mier League (WPL).

How­ev­er, the pos­i­tive sports news from Mo­di’s vis­it did not start with the agree­ment be­tween the two coun­tries. In prepa­ra­tion for the vis­it, the road lead­ing to the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, the Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre, and the Cy­cling Velo­drome in Cou­va was par­tial­ly repaved, with fresh line mark­ings added. Even the perime­ter road around the sta­di­um re­ceived some patch­work paving, mak­ing small but mean­ing­ful im­prove­ments. Most of the street lights out­side the main en­trance are al­so func­tion­al. These up­grades have al­ready been ap­pre­ci­at­ed by reg­u­lar users of the area, in­clud­ing my­self, es­pe­cial­ly morn­ing and evening walk­ers and run­ners who can now en­joy smoother paths for their fit­ness rou­tines. Aes­thet­ics are es­sen­tial fea­tures of be­ing world-class.

At the same time, it’s dis­ap­point­ing that these wel­come im­prove­ments on­ly oc­curred be­cause of a high-pro­file vis­it. In the past, even events like the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games or CON­CA­CAF World Cup qual­i­fiers did not prompt such up­grades. How­ev­er, it shouldn’t take such oc­ca­sions to en­sure ba­sic main­te­nance is done. Many ob­ser­vant cit­i­zens have no­ticed this and hope that, in the fu­ture, up­grades will hap­pen more reg­u­lar­ly and proac­tive­ly. If sports are to serve as a tool to equip ath­letes with skills and al­low the pub­lic to ex­er­cise com­fort­ably and stay healthy, then they must have ac­cess to the best in­fra­struc­ture.

In­vest­ment in sports should be proac­tive and in­no­v­a­tive. These im­prove­ments are a pos­i­tive step, and hope­ful­ly they mark the be­gin­ning of a broad­er, more con­sis­tent ef­fort to care for and up­grade our na­tion­al sports in­fra­struc­ture. Fa­cil­i­ties like Man­ny Ramjohn Sta­di­um in Mara­bel­la, Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Ari­ma, and Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in To­ba­go de­serve the same at­ten­tion and care giv­en to the Cou­va com­plex this month. As men­tioned in a pre­vi­ous col­umn, I al­so ex­pect Gilbert Park in Cal­i­for­nia, which SporTT (Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T) man­ages, to re­open to the pub­lic.

I would be re­miss if I did not sin­cere­ly thank the rel­e­vant min­istries, re­gion­al gov­ern­ments, and agen­cies for their ef­forts in per­form­ing es­sen­tial main­te­nance work. Please do not un­der­es­ti­mate the la­tent pos­i­tive im­pact of your ef­forts, as they have brought a great deal of joy and hap­pi­ness to walk­ers and jog­gers, in­clud­ing my­self, who use the fa­cil­i­ties every morn­ing and evening to stay healthy.