GYASI MER­RIQUE

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

gyasi.mer­rique@cnc3.co.tt

By any mea­sure, 20 years is a long time, but in the world of elite sport, it can amount to an over­lap of gen­er­a­tions. Take, for in­stance, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Force team’s as­cen­sion to re­gion­al four-day crick­et cham­pi­ons for the first time in two decades, which fea­tured on­ly two play­ers who were 15 years old or old­er in 2006, when the team last won the tour­na­ment. Evin Lewis was 15 at the time, and Ja­son Mo­hammed was 20. In­ci­den­tal­ly, Mo­hammed de­buted in that 2006 team, which al­so con­tained cur­rent head coach Rayad Em­rit. Iron­i­cal­ly, both Mo­hammed and Lewis chose to re­tire from first-class crick­et at the end of this sea­son fol­low­ing vic­to­ry over the Guyana Harpy Ea­gles in the 2026 West In­dies Cham­pi­onship fi­nal at the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um, An­tigua, on Wednes­day.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, of this year’s ti­tle-win­ning 13, sev­en of them were ten years or younger and pos­si­bly may not even re­mem­ber the hero­ics of the 2006 team.

With­in the two decades since, count­less play­ers, coach­es, staff mem­bers, and even ad­min­is­tra­tors have en­deav­oured with­out at­tain­ing the ul­ti­mate suc­cess, but their ef­forts were ap­pre­ci­at­ed by those at a wel­come re­cep­tion at the VIP Lounge at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Thurs­day, es­pe­cial­ly Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board pres­i­dent Az­im Bas­sarath.

“This vic­to­ry was long in com­ing. Many peo­ple will cel­e­brate the tro­phy to­day, but those of us who have walked this jour­ney know the sac­ri­fices, dis­ap­point­ments, and near miss­es. That came be­fore this mo­ment,” said Bas­sarath.

He went on, “Twen­ty years is a long time for a crick­et­ing na­tion with the his­to­ry, tal­ent and pride of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Many great play­ers have worn this jer­sey over the years and came close. But this group of play­ers and man­age­ment have now etched their names in­to the his­to­ry books by bring­ing this pres­ti­gious ti­tle back home where it be­longs.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, Bas­sarath said the more re­cent ground­work that has gone in­to shap­ing this cham­pi­onship team al­so de­serves recog­ni­tion. He em­pha­sised that ar­riv­ing at the tro­phy for the first time in two decades was no co­in­ci­dence.

He said, “Far too of­ten, the work be­hind the scenes goes un­no­ticed, but this cham­pi­onship was built on plan­ning, struc­ture, prepa­ra­tion and sac­ri­fice. This year, the play­ers and man­age­ment made a col­lec­tive de­ci­sion that they would leave ab­solute­ly noth­ing to chance. Dur­ing the prepa­ra­tion pe­ri­od, sev­er­al re­quests were made by the team and man­age­ment to en­sure that every pos­si­ble re­source was avail­able to give this team the best op­por­tu­ni­ty to suc­ceed.”

He said, “This suc­cess did not be­gin this week, this month, last month or last year. The ground­work for this achieve­ment was laid years ago, with the sup­port and vi­sion of for­mer Min­is­ter of Sports Sham­fa Cud­joe and for­mer Sport Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go chair­man Dou­glas Ca­ma­cho, who en­sured that the team re­ceived the as­sis­tance nec­es­sary to pre­pare prop­er­ly since 2019. That sup­port con­tin­ues un­der the cur­rent chair­man, Mr Kester Lendor; vice chair­man, Mr. Shaun Teekas­ingh; di­rec­tor, Adri­an Ali; and the present SporTT board, and it will be re­miss of me not to pub­licly ac­knowl­edge and thank them for their con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to Trinidad and To­ba­go crick­et.”

In list­ing those de­serv­ing of cred­it be­yond the play­ers and staff, Bas­sarath high­light­ed the na­tion­al team se­lec­tors and com­mend­ed the Sport De­vel­op­ment Unit (SP­DU) of the Sport Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SporTT) “for the tremen­dous sup­port they pro­vid­ed.”