WIND­HOEK – Fu­elled by stand­out per­for­mances by open­er Zachary Carter and pac­er Shaquan Belle, the West In­dies Un­der-19s sailed in­to the Su­per Six phase of the ICC Men’s Un­der-19 World Cup on a win­ning note with a 55-run vic­to­ry over South Africa in Namib­ia on Thurs­day.

Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, Phillip Watts, on Wednes­day, pre­sent­ed cel­e­brat­ed javelin throw­er and Sports Am­bas­sador Keshorn Wal­cott with a Na­tion­al In­cen­tive and Re­ward val­ued at TT$500,000.

DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates—Fol­low­ing a dis­ap­point­ing per­for­mance in their just con­clud­ed T20I se­ries against Afghanistan, stand-in West In­dies cap­tain Bran­don King has ad­mit­ted that the re­gion­al team needs to make ma­jor im­prove­ments ahead of next month’s ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.

DUBAI – Shamar Springer’s hat-trick hero­ics bowled West In­dies to a mem­o­rable 15-run win to de­ny Afghanistan a se­ries sweep in the third and fi­nal T20I in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates on Thurs­day.

KINGSTOWN, St Vin­cent – Ja­maica Women played spoil­er in the fi­nal pre­lim­i­nary round of the T20 Blaze, de­feat­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go Women by three wick­ets via the Duck­worth/Lewis/Stern method to end any hopes they had of qual­i­fy­ing for Fri­day’s fi­nal.

KINGSTOWN – Aaliyah Al­leyne played a star­ring role with both bat and ball to car­ry Bar­ba­dos Women in­to the fi­nal of the T20 Blaze with a re­sound­ing 22-run vic­to­ry over de­fend­ing champs Guyana Women in St Vin­cent on Wednes­day.

Since mak­ing her West In­dies de­but as a teenag­er in 2014, Bar­ba­di­an all-rounder Hay­ley Matthews has hard­ly had a break.

DUBAI – Dar­wish Ra­sooli starred with the bat for the sec­ond straight match, while off-spin­ner Mu­jeeb Ur Rah­man bam­boo­zled West In­dies’ bats­men as Afghanistan sealed the T20I se­ries with a com­fort­able 39-run win in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates on Wednes­day.

In my last col­umn, I al­lowed my­self a mo­ment of op­ti­mism re­gard­ing the West In­dies Un­der-19 team com­pet­ing in the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) Un­der-19 World Cup.

KINGSTOWN – A dis­ci­plined bowl­ing ef­fort fol­lowed by a com­posed chase led by vet­er­an Stafanie Tay­lor saw Ja­maica Women pick up their first win in the T20 Blaze, de­feat­ing Wind­ward Is­lands Women by sev­en wick­ets at the Arnos Vale Play­ing Field in St Vin­cent on Mon­day.

CARDIFF, Wales – In a sto­ry of her­itage, re­silience, and sport­ing re­birth, for­mer Great Britain bob­sleigh star Mi­ca Moore will race on­to the Olympic stage next month wear­ing the colours of Ja­maica.

The Court of Ap­peal will take the next few months to con­sid­er an ap­peal re­lat­ed to the T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) elec­tions in 2019.