The re­cent vis­it of the T&T foot­ball team to Riyadh, Sau­di Ara­bia, was a land­mark oc­ca­sion that un­der­scored the grow­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two na­tions through the uni­ver­sal lan­guage of foot­ball. This trip was char­ac­terised by warm re­cep­tions, first-time ex­pe­ri­ences for some, and valu­able learn­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties, hope­ful­ly set­ting the stage for a ro­bust part­ner­ship in the fu­ture.

Ayan­na Rus­sell, T&T Red An­gels coach and Der­nelle Mas­call, who coached the lo­cal White An­gels team at the just-con­clud­ed First Cit­i­zens Jew­els of the Caribbean Women’s Foot­ball Tour­na­ment, be­lieve the tour­na­ment has put them in a bet­ter po­si­tion for the CON­CA­CAF Women’s Qual­i­fiers in Jan­u­ary.

Over his 11-year ca­reer which end­ed in 1991, Jef­frey Du­jon nev­er played in a West In­dies crick­et team that lost a Test se­ries. Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, the West In­dies won 15, with sev­en drawn in their 23 Test se­ries. Du­jon al­so played in a lim­it­ed overs team that won 14 straight se­ries be­tween 1980 and 1988. It is by far the most suc­cess­ful pe­ri­od in the team’s his­to­ry and ac­cord­ing to Du­jon “hold­ing each oth­er ac­count­able was key to the suc­cess of the side.

Samuel Williams and Or­lan­do Charles took the over­all award for best fight­ers in the Ju­nior Di­vi­sion when the Mixed Mar­tial Arts Cham­pi­onships, put on by the T&T Mixed Mar­tial Arts Fed­er­a­tion (TTM­MAF), were held a week ago.

Leg­endary West In­dies fast bowler, Sir Andy Roberts does not be­lieve the ap­point­ment of Daren Sam­my as head coach of the Test team will re­sult in any im­me­di­ate suc­cess for the re­gion­al side.

T&T swim­mer Dy­lan Carter will fea­ture at the 2025 Bergen Swim Fes­ti­val which will be held from April 4-6 in Nor­way.

KINGSTOWN – Fol­low­ing a dis­ap­point­ing T20I se­ries loss to Bangladesh, West In­dies T20 cap­tain Rov­man Pow­ell be­lieves the play­ers must use the up­com­ing time off to recharge and prop­er­ly pre­pare for 2025.

LON­DON – West In­dies’ left-arm spin­ner Fabi­an Allen has been ruled out of the rest of the Big Bash League (BBL) af­ter pick­ing up a ham­string in­jury in the Ade­laide Strik­ers’ first game of the tour­na­ment against the Syd­ney Thun­der on Fri­day.

KINGSTOWN – Jak­er Ali’s ex­plo­sive half-cen­tu­ry cou­pled with an­oth­er abysmal bat­ting per­for­mance by the West In­dies helped Bangladesh romp to an 80-run vic­to­ry in the third and fi­nal T20I here at Arnos Vale in St Vin­cent on Thurs­day (De­cem­ber 19).

The Gold­en Arch­es team will go in­to the Christ­mas break at the top of the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion stand­ings. The ‘Arch­es’, cap­tained by Ravy Joseph, com­plet­ed week five of the Na­tion­al Pool League (NPL) with four wins and one loss, their lat­est tri­umph a 3-2 win against the vis­it­ing Shoot­ing Stars at Gold­en Arch­es II in Curepe on Wednes­day.

France-based Chloe Fras­er of Smal­ta Cru­saders re­peat­ed as the win­ner of the women’s Open af­ter she end­ed the T&T Ta­ble Ten­nis As­so­ci­a­tion Su­per Sin­gles Top Five’ round-robin fi­nals with an un­blem­ished 4-0 record at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre, Tacarigua on Wednes­day.

NAVI MUM­BAI –Sm­ri­ti Mand­hana de­liv­ered yet an­oth­er mas­ter­class by scor­ing a scin­til­lat­ing 77 off 47 balls, while Richa Ghosh smashed a 21-ball 54 to pro­pel In­dia to a com­mand­ing 60-run vic­to­ry over the West In­dies in the third T20I in Navi Mum­bai, In­dia on Thurs­day. The win sealed the se­ries 2-1 for the hosts, cap­ping off a dom­i­nant dis­play with both bat and ball.