A mid­week 30-over com­pe­ti­tion may be mak­ing a re­turn to the lo­cal cir­cuit in the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion in 2026. Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board (TTCB) pres­i­dent Az­im Bas­sarath made the an­nounce­ment at the T&TCB Pre­mier League Awards Cer­e­mo­ny at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre in Cou­va on Fri­day night.

In mak­ing the an­nounce­ment in Bal­main, Bas­sarath re­mind­ed the lis­ten­ers that crick­et was once very pop­u­lar in the com­mu­ni­ties.

“There was a time when rep­re­sent­ing your com­mu­ni­ty, vil­lage, or town was seen as one of the great­est ho­n­ours a young crick­eter could achieve,” Bas­sarath said.

“Those were the glo­ry days when crick­et grounds were filled with sup­port­ers wav­ing ban­ners, cheer­ing on their home team, and cre­at­ing an at­mos­phere of uni­ty and pride. We must work to­geth­er to re­cap­ture that spir­it, to bring back the pas­sion and ex­cite­ment that once filled our play­ing fields.”

Ac­cord­ing to the Crick­et West In­dies Vice Pres­i­dent, for this to hap­pen, the clubs must be more than just teams; they must be well-struc­tured, prop­er­ly or­gan­ised, and reg­is­tered with the rel­e­vant gov­ern­ment agen­cies to en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty and long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

Bas­sarath fur­ther not­ed that strong na­tion­al teams are de­pen­dent on strong clubs.

“Strong clubs build strong com­pe­ti­tions, and strong com­pe­ti­tions build strong na­tion­al teams.”

Bas­sar­tah con­tin­ued, “As part of this vi­sion, the Board is ex­plor­ing the in­tro­duc­tion of a mid­week 30-over com­pe­ti­tion, to be played on Tues­days and Wednes­days from 4 pm. We be­lieve this for­mat can help clubs sharp­en their skills, strength­en their train­ing pro­grammes, and, im­por­tant­ly, bring sup­port­ers back to the grounds.”

In ad­di­tion to the new com­pe­ti­tion for clubs at the na­tion­al lev­el, the TTCB is al­so pay­ing at­ten­tion to the coach­ing at the zon­al lev­el.

“The Board man­dat­ed that each zone con­duct a Lev­el I Coach­ing Course. I am pleased to re­port that five zones have al­ready com­plet­ed this ini­tia­tive. This pro­gramme will en­sure that clubs have greater ac­cess to cer­ti­fied coach­es, there­by im­prov­ing the tech­ni­cal de­vel­op­ment of play­ers across all lev­els.”

Among the play­ers who were ho­n­oured are Bess Mo­tors Marchin Pa­tri­ots open­er Evin Lewis, who plun­dered 952 runs in the sea­son, while his team­mate Kas­tri Singh took 49 wick­ets to top the wick­ets col­umn.

Justin Joseph (Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice), whose 48 wick­ets were the most and 393 runs were the top ag­gre­gate in Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion II North.

Wood­land’s Rakesh Ma­haraj got the most wick­ets in Pre­mier­ship South with 61 scalps, while Club San­do’s Silus Coop­er scored the most runs (732).