Dwayne John Bra­vo, af­fec­tion­ate­ly known to his fans across T&T and through­out the crick­et­ing world as DJ Bra­vo, has called time on his ca­reer a lit­tle ear­li­er than ex­pect­ed.

A groin in­jury suf­fered on Tues­day dur­ing the Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) match be­tween his Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR) and the St Lu­cia Kings has cur­tailed his par­tic­i­pa­tion in “the great­est par­ty in sports” and led to his re­tire­ment an­nounce­ment on Thurs­day.

It is the end of a re­mark­able in­nings by one of this coun­try’s most suc­cess­ful and con­sis­tent sports per­son­al­i­ties.

His bit­ter­sweet mes­sage high­light­ed how tough it was for him to de­cide to step away from the game: “My mind wants to keep go­ing, but my body can no longer en­dure the pain, the break­downs, and the strain. I can’t put my­self in a po­si­tion where I might let down my team­mates, my fans, or the teams I rep­re­sent.”

How­ev­er, while Bra­vo has de­part­ed from the field of play, this is def­i­nite­ly not the end of the road for the West In­dies and T&T all-rounder and T20 su­per­star. He now takes on a new as­sign­ment in the crick­et world as the men­tor of In­di­an Pro­fes­sion­al League (IPL) team Kolkata Knight Rid­ers. It is a role for which he is per­fect­ly suit­ed—in­spir­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of cham­pi­ons.

Dur­ing his 21-year pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer, the charis­mat­ic all-rounder de­light­ed fans with his flair and skill as a bat­ter and seam bowler. On the field, he was a thinker and strate­gist who had a ma­jor im­pact on the T20 ver­sion of the game.

DJ Bra­vo’s crick­et ac­com­plish­ments are too nu­mer­ous to be list­ed in this lim­it­ed space. He is the all-time lead­ing wick­et-tak­er with 631 wick­ets from 582 match­es, made the slow­er ball main­stream and death bowl­ing a spe­cial­i­ty. In ad­di­tion to all that, he was a qual­i­ty low­er-or­der bat­ter.

His ca­reer highs in­clude be­ing part of the West In­di­an sides that won two T20 World Cups and lead­ing TKR to back-to-back ti­tles in 2017 and 2018.

Not bad for a boy from San­ta Cruz who grew up want­i­ng to fol­low in the foot­steps of his hero Bri­an Lara, who hails from the same town.

Like Lara, his crick­et­ing skills were nur­tured and fine-tuned at the Queen’s Park Crick­et Club, a sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion that has launched the ca­reers of many lo­cal foot­ball and crick­et stars.

For his sport­ing achieve­ments alone, DJ Bra­vo is de­serv­ing of every ac­co­lade he has re­ceived.

How­ev­er, he has al­so been a cham­pi­on off the field.

Per­haps his best-known non-sport­ing en­deav­our was his sin­gle Cham­pi­on, re­leased to com­mem­o­rate West In­dies win­ning the 2016 World T20. It be­came a run­away hit in In­dia, top­ping charts on the sub­con­ti­nent and re­cent­ly fea­tured in the vic­to­ry cel­e­bra­tions of an Olympic gold medal team.

More than that, he has dis­played his phil­an­thropy over the years through the Dwayne Bra­vo Foun­da­tion, which works to up­lift un­der­priv­i­leged chil­dren and com­mu­ni­ties.

Over the past sev­en years, his 47 All White Char­i­ty Event, an event well pa­tro­n­ised by lo­cal and re­gion­al celebri­ties, has raised funds for many worth­while caus­es.

Bra­vo may have laid aside his crick­et bat and ball but that is on­ly part of his pos­i­tive im­pact, as he will con­tin­ue to serve as role mod­el and men­tor.

He is an all-round cham­pi­on who has made T&T proud.