ST JOHN’S, An­tigua – Trinidad and To­ba­go Women are the new­ly crowned cham­pi­ons of the CWI Ris­ing Stars Un­der-19 Women’s Cham­pi­onship af­ter de­feat­ing de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Bar­ba­dos Women by six wick­ets in an ex­cit­ing fi­nal, Sat­ur­day (Au­gust 15).

It was T&T’s sec­ond win in as many days over Bar­ba­dos and en­sured they fin­ished the com­pe­ti­tion un­beat­en by win­ning all six of their match­es.

Mean­while, Ja­maica Women thumped Lee­ward Is­lands Women by five wick­ets to fin­ish third, while Guyana Women end­ed in fifth po­si­tion af­ter de­mol­ish­ing Wind­ward Is­lands Women by 64 runs.

At Coolidge Crick­et Ground: Trinidad and To­ba­go Women showed that their pre­lim­i­nary round vic­to­ry over Bar­ba­dos Women was no fluke, as they strolled to a six-wick­et win over them in the fi­nal here on Sat­ur­day.

With the re­sult, T&T de­throned the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons and cap­tured their first CWI Ris­ing Stars Un­der-19 Women’s Cham­pi­onship ti­tle since 2022.

Af­ter be­ing sent in to bat, Bar­ba­dos pro­duced a bet­ter bat­ting per­for­mance this time around on their way to post­ing a com­pet­i­tive 104 for five in their 20 overs.

T&T then sur­vived some ner­vous mo­ments be­fore reach­ing their tar­get, fin­ish­ing on 105 for four with six balls to spare.

In a much clos­er con­test than their 84-run win in Fri­day’s pre­lim­i­nary match, T&T lost cap­tain Sama­ra Ram­nath ear­ly with just eight runs on the board.

Am­ri­ta Ram­ta­hal and Sera­iah Kawals­ingh looked to have set their team on course for a com­fort­able win dur­ing a 57-run part­ner­ship for the sec­ond wick­et.

How­ev­er, Zaniyah Bruce struck twice in quick suc­ces­sion to re­move Kawals­ingh for 27 off 41 balls and Ram­ta­hal for the top score of 29 from 34 balls to see T&T slip to 79 for three in the 15th over.

Bri­an­na Har­richa­ran struck three fours in her knock of 18 off 14 balls be­fore she was run out by Bruce to set up an in­ter­est­ing fin­ish with the score 93 for four in the 18th over.

Bar­ba­dos was still in with a chance of com­plet­ing an un­like­ly vic­to­ry when the equa­tion came down to 11 runs need­ed from the fi­nal two overs.

But Jan­nah Mo­hammed proved to be T&T’s hero by hit­ting Sabriel Headley for two bound­aries in the penul­ti­mate over to bring an end to the match and spark wild cel­e­bra­tions among the Trinida­di­an camp.

Bruce was Bar­ba­dos’ best bowler with 2-18 from her four overs.

Ear­li­er, Bruce struck an un­beat­en 30 off 25 balls and along with the tour­na­ment’s high­est run scor­er Eboni Brath­waite, who made 27, were the main­stay of Bar­ba­dos’ to­tal.

How­ev­er, once Sameera Naidoo dis­missed Brath­waite to make the score 50 for three in the 10th over, Bar­ba­dos lost some of its mo­men­tum.

With T&T’s bowlers giv­ing very lit­tle away, Bar­ba­dos could on­ly muster 39 runs from their fi­nal sev­en overs and were about 20 runs short of an ide­al to­tal.

Naidoo claimed 3-18 from her four overs.

<Ja­maica se­cures bronze medals>

At Coolidge Crick­et Ground: Ja­maica Women capped off a com­mend­able per­for­mance in this year’s tour­na­ment by thrash­ing Lee­ward Is­lands Women by five wick­ets to fin­ish in third po­si­tion.

The Lee­ward Is­lands were made to re­gret their de­ci­sion to bat first af­ter win­ning the toss, with Ja­maica pro­duc­ing an im­pres­sive bowl­ing per­for­mance to lim­it them to 69 for eight in their 20 overs.

On­ly their cap­tain Aaliyah Weekes, who made 18 and open­er Zara Sker­ritt, who scored 12, made it in­to dou­ble fig­ures, as all but one of the five bowlers used by Ja­maica’s cap­tain Adanya Baugh cap­tured a wick­et.

Baugh fin­ished with the best fig­ures of 2-21.

De­spite fac­ing a straight­for­ward run chase, Ja­maica found them­selves in a spot of both­er when Lean­ga Warn­er and Weekes grabbed two wick­ets apiece to leave them stum­bling at 37 for five at one stage.

But Baugh, who scored a cru­cial un­beat­en 10, along with Nicoya Green, shared an un­bro­ken part­ner­ship of 33 runs to see their side over the line.

The Lee­ward Is­lands al­so did them­selves no favours by con­tribut­ing 31 ex­tras to Ja­maica’s to­tal.

Warn­er end­ed with 2-13 and Weekes claimed 2-17.

<Guayan end­ed fifth>

At Lib­er­ta Sports Ground: Guyana Women avoid­ed fin­ish­ing at the bot­tom of the ta­ble by de­feat­ing the Wind­ward Is­lands Women by 64 runs in a lop­sided con­test.

Open­er Ja­da Fras­er and num­ber three bat­ter Bri­ana Sama­roo led the way for Guyana with both scor­ing 23 runs, but their to­tal was boost­ed by the 30 ex­tras gift­ed to them by their op­po­nents as they post­ed 100 for sev­en in 20 overs.

Am­mie An­toine (2-13) and Daisy Woods (2-16) were the Wind­ward Is­lands’ best bowlers.

The Wind­ward Is­lands Women then pro­duced an abysmal bat­ting per­for­mance to be rout­ed for a mea­gre 36 in 24 overs.

So shock­ing was their bat­ting dis­play that the most runs scored by any bat­ter was five, with the 17 ex­tras con­ced­ed by Guyana be­ing the largest sin­gle con­trib­u­tor to the to­tal.

The Wind­ward Is­lands were 22 for three at one stage, be­fore los­ing their last sev­en wick­ets for 14 runs in the space of 10 overs.

Sowan­na Book­er was Guyana’s best bowler with the out­stand­ing fig­ures of 3-1, while Shene­sa Thomas grabbed 3-9 and Christi­na Jack­son 2-18.

Sum­marised scores

Fi­nal scores

At Coolidge Crick­et Ground: Trinidad and To­ba­go Women de­feat­ed Bar­ba­dos Women by six wick­ets.

BAR­BA­DOS WOMEN 104-5 in 20 overs (Zaniyah Bruce 30 not out, Eboni Brath­waite 27, Thean­ny Her­bert-May­ers 15, Jamis Mor­ris-Al­leyne 11 not out; Sameera Naidoo 3-18) vs T&T WOMEN 105-4 in 19 overs (Am­ri­ta Ram­ta­hal 29, Sera­iah Kawals­ingh 27, Bri­an­na Har­richa­ran 18; Zaniyah Bruce 2-18).

Third place play­off

At Coolidge Crick­et Ground: Ja­maica Women de­feat­ed Lee­ward Is­lands Women by five wick­ets.

LEE­WARD IS­LANDS WOMEN 69-8 in 20 overs (Aaliyah Weekes 18, Zara Sker­ritt 12; Adanya Baugh 2-21) vs JA­MAICA WOMEN 70-5 in 16.3 overs (Adanya Baugh 10 not out; Lean­ga Warn­er 2-13, Aaliyah Weekes 2-17).

Fifth place play­off

At Lib­er­ta Sports Club: Guyana Women de­feat­ed Wind­ward Is­lands Women by 64 runs.

GUYANA WOMEN 100-7 in 20 overs (Ja­da Fras­er 23, Bri­ana Sama­roo 23; Am­mie An­toine 2-13, Daisy Woods 2-16) vs WIND­WARD IS­LANDS WOMEN 36 in 14 overs (Sowan­na Book­er 3-1, Shene­sa Thomas 3-9, Christi­na Jack­son 2-18).