Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Un­der-19 women’s crick­et team re­gained the Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) Ris­ing Stars Un­der-19 Women’s Cham­pi­onship in con­vinc­ing style. The na­tion­al youth team, which last won the re­gion­al ti­tle in 2023 in T&T, de­feat­ed Bar­ba­dos by 6 wick­ets in the fi­nal at the Coolidge Crick­et Ground in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da. Bar­ba­dos scored 104 for 5 wick­ets in 20 overs, and Trinidad and To­ba­go achieved the tar­get of 105 for the loss of 4 wick­ets with 6 balls to spare.

Play­er of the tour­na­ment cap­tain Sama­ra Ram­nath was T&T’s lead­ing run-scor­er with 104 runs in six in­nings. Her high­est score of 56 not out against Bar­ba­dos in the group stage was the sec­ond-high­est in­di­vid­ual score of the tour­na­ment, be­hind on­ly Bar­ba­dos’s Eboni Braith­waite (135 not out against the Lee­ward Is­lands). She fin­ished 5th over­all among all bat­ters.

Ram­nath al­so topped the tour­na­ment bowl­ing with 16 wick­ets for 59 runs in 18.2 overs, in­clud­ing three four-wick­et hauls. She had the tour­na­ment’s best fig­ures of 4 for 3 against the Lee­ward Is­lands, and the tour­na­ment’s sole hat-trick against the Wind­ward Is­lands (4 for 10).

Open­ing bat­ter Am­ri­ta Ram­ta­hal fin­ished sec­ond among T&T’s run-scor­ers with 85 runs in six in­nings. Her high­est score, 29 in the fi­nal, came in a vi­tal 57-run sec­ond-wick­et part­ner­ship with Sera­iah Kawals­ingh (27), and she al­so con­tributed 6 wick­ets for 69 runs in 17 overs open­ing the bowl­ing.

Vice- cap­tain Bri­an­na Har­richa­ran al­so pro­duced a stel­lar all-round per­for­mance, fin­ish­ing 3rd among the bat­ters with 66 runs in 5 in­nings, with a top score of 18 in the fi­nal. She was the tour­na­ment’s sec­ond over­all wick­et-tak­er be­hind Ram­nath, cap­tur­ing 12 wick­ets for 60 runs in 18.3 overs. Har­richa­ran set the tone in T&T’s open­ing match against Ja­maica, tak­ing 3 wick­ets with­out con­ced­ing a sin­gle run.

Oth­er play­ers who con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the team’s ef­fort were:

· Jes­si­ca Davis: 39 runs in 3 in­nings, in­clud­ing a match-win­ning top score of 19 against Guyana in Round 2.

· Sera­iah Kawals­ingh: 36 runs in three in­nings, in­clud­ing 27 in the fi­nal.

· Jan­nah Mo­hammed: 26 runs—in­clud­ing a high-pres­sure 9 not out along­side Davis to close out the fi­nal—and named the Best Wick­et-Keep­er of the Tour­na­ment with 5 stump­ings and in­volved in 3 run-outs.

· Shriya Jairam & Sian Ram­nar­ine: Main­tained con­trol in the bowl­ing unit, with Jairam tak­ing 4 wick­ets for 50 runs (19.4 overs) and Ram­nar­ine claim­ing 2 for 47 (15 overs).

As a re­ward for their re­gion­al tri­umph, eight T&T play­ers—Ram­nath, Har­richa­ran, Davis, Mo­hammed, Jairam, Ram­nar­ine, Ram­ta­hal, and Kawals­ingh—were se­lect­ed for train­ing camp in An­tigua af­ter the re­gion­al tour­na­ment. The camp sig­nals the start of prepa­ra­tions for squad se­lec­tion ahead of the 3rd ICC U19 Women’s T20 World Cup in Bangladesh and Nepal in ear­ly 2027.

While six play­ers- Ram­nath, Har­richa­ran, Mo­hammed, and Jairam for Cal­drac Achiev­ers, along­side Ram­nar­ine and Ram­ta­hal for Hi­bis­cus Women— play in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Women’s Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion (TTWCA) Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion, Davis and Kawals­ingh com­pete in the TTWCA Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion with the North Zone Acad­e­my of Crick­et (NZAC). There­fore, the in­cen­tive is there for all play­ers to vie for se­lec­tion for the 2027 team.

The U19 team’s per­for­mance was led by the as­tute lead­er­ship and tech­ni­cal guid­ance of Head Coach Stephanie Pow­er, as­sis­tant coach Di­anne Has­saranah, man­ag­er Nadra Dwari­ka-Bap­tiste, and strength and con­di­tion­ing train­er Can­dice Joseph. Pow­er, Dwari­ka-Bap­tiste, and Joseph al­so show­cased the UWI St. Au­gus­tine Acad­e­my of Sport’s in­sti­tu­tion­al im­pact on na­tion­al sport de­vel­op­ment. TTWCA man­age­ment, led by Pres­i­dent Ma­jorie Thomas, Gertrude Ann Browne-John (Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor), Bernadette An­toine (Sec­re­tary), along with the sup­port of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Crick­et Board ex­ec­u­tive in pro­vid­ing women’s crick­et a ground to train, de­serve ap­plause for build­ing these sup­port­ive sys­tems. The par­ents, guardians and sup­port­ers of the play­ers es­pe­cial­ly those who trav­elled to An­tigua and Bar­bu­da to sup­port must al­so be con­grat­u­lat­ed.

At­ten­tion now turns to the se­nior na­tion­al women’s team as they pre­pare to qual­i­fy for the 2027 Pan Amer­i­can Games in Pe­ru, where crick­et makes its his­tor­i­cal de­but. The top four teams from the re­gion­al qual­i­fi­er—where the Lee­ward and Wind­ward Is­lands com­pete as in­di­vid­ual ter­ri­to­ries—will earn Pan Amer­i­can berths.

The in­cen­tive to fin­ish first in the re­gion­al tour­na­ment is mon­u­men­tal, as it may al­so mean rep­re­sent­ing the re­gion at the ICC Glob­al Qual­i­fi­er to de­ter­mine the 6th and fi­nal women’s team at the Los An­ge­les 2028 Olympic Games, mark­ing crick­et’s re­turn to the Olympic stage af­ter 128 years.