The Trinidad and To­ba­go Women’s Un­der-19 team has com­plet­ed its prepa­ra­tions and is ea­ger to be­gin its cam­paign in the Crick­et West In­dies Ris­ing Stars Un­der-19 T20 Tour­na­ment, which bowls off in An­tigua on Fri­day.

The young squad opens its tour­na­ment against Ja­maica at the Lib­er­ta Sports Club, car­ry­ing con­fi­dence af­ter months of prepa­ra­tion and a strong sense of uni­ty.

Bri­an­na Har­richa­ran, who has as­sumed a lead­er­ship role in the ab­sence of in­jured cap­tain Sama­ra Ram­nath in 2025, said the play­ers are em­brac­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­pete out­side Trinidad and To­ba­go for the first time in the re­gion­al tour­na­ment.

“We are in high spir­its,” Har­richa­ran said. “This is the first time the tour­na­ment is be­ing held out­side of Trinidad and To­ba­go, so every­one is re­al­ly ex­cit­ed about the new ex­pe­ri­ence. We’ve been train­ing for quite some time, and we’ve re­al­ly bond­ed as a group.”

Hav­ing al­ready gained valu­able se­nior-lev­el ex­pe­ri­ence along­side Ram­nath and Am­ri­ta Ram­ta­hal, Har­richa­ran hopes to lead by ex­am­ple through­out the com­pe­ti­tion.

“I want to step up for the team and take on more re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, es­pe­cial­ly with both my bat­ting and bowl­ing,” she said. “I want to trans­fer every­thing I’ve been work­ing on in train­ing on­to the field.”

All-rounder Renelle Reid, the squad’s lone To­bag­on­ian, is al­so look­ing to trans­late months of hard work in­to strong per­for­mances. Reid cred­it­ed her de­vel­op­ment to reg­u­lar train­ing with the To­ba­go Boys team and coach­es Jahron Al­fred, Clement Her­cules and Gilbert Leza­ma, while pay­ing trib­ute to the late John Pol­lard.

“He has been a re­al­ly in­stru­men­tal per­son in my life from the be­gin­ning of my crick­et­ing ca­reer,” Reid said.

The tal­ent­ed all-rounder has set am­bi­tious goals for the tour­na­ment.

“I want to put all the hard work from train­ing in­to my per­for­mances, be an in­stru­men­tal play­er for my team and be­come the best all-rounder in the tour­na­ment,” she said.

The tour­na­ment will al­so fo­cus on per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment, with play­ers re­ceiv­ing train­ing in nu­tri­tion, men­tal and women’s health, dig­i­tal pres­ence, an­ti-dop­ing, and an­ti-cor­rup­tion pro­to­cols, mir­ror­ing the com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach tak­en dur­ing last month’s Men’s Cham­pi­onship.

The six teams will com­pete in a round-robin pre­lim­i­nary stage, with each side play­ing once over five rounds. The top two teams will then con­test the Cham­pi­onship Fi­nal on Au­gust 15, while the re­main­ing sides will com­pete in place­ment match­es to de­ter­mine the fi­nal stand­ings.

To­day’s Round 1

Lee­ward Is­lands vs Wind­ward Is­lands – Lib­er­ta Sports Club (9:00 AM)

Trinidad and To­ba­go vs Ja­maica – Bethes­da Play­ing Field (10:00 AM)

Bar­ba­dos vs Guyana – Lib­er­ta Sports Club (2:00 PM)

Sun­day’s Round 2

Lee­ward Is­lands vs Ja­maica – Lib­er­ta Sports Club (9:00 AM)

Bar­ba­dos vs Wind­ward Is­lands – Bethes­da Play­ing Field (10:00 AM)

Trinidad and To­ba­go vs Guyana – Lib­er­ta Sports Club (2:00 PM)