The T&T se­nior women’s net­ball team, dubbed the ‘Ca­lyp­so Girls’, will open their Pool B round-robin cam­paign at this year’s scaled-down ver­sion of the Com­mon­wealth Games against re­gion­al ri­vals and world num­ber three team, Ja­maica, on Ju­ly 25.

This was dis­closed when the of­fi­cial fix­tures for the 12-team tour­na­ment at the 23rd edi­tion of the games were re­leased by World Net­ball yes­ter­day.

Af­ter fac­ing Ja­maica’s ‘Sun­shine Girls’, who were sil­ver medal win­ners four years ago, the ‘Ca­lyp­so Girls’, ranked 11th in the world, will then come up against sev­enth-ranked Ugan­da on Sun­day, Ju­ly 26, fol­lowed by match­es against host and tenth-ranked Scot­land on Mon­day, Ju­ly 27; sixth-ranked Wales on Tues­day, Ju­ly 28; and in their fi­nal pool match, world sec­ond-ranked New Zealand, the 2022 bronze medal win­ners, on Thurs­day, Ju­ly 30.

Ear­li­er this month, Net­ball TT named Liselle John­son as the new head coach, along with her tech­ni­cal team of as­sis­tant coach Car­lette Nurse, man­ag­er Akeela Ro­driguez, ath­let­ic train­er Abe­jah Robin­son, phys­io­ther­a­pists De­nor­ra George and Kern Mel­oney, and mas­sage ther­a­pist Jer­mome Browne.

The Com­mon­wealth Games will be their first test in a packed year, which al­so in­cludes the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games, to run from Au­gust 3 to 7 in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, and Net­ball World Cup Syd­ney 2027 qual­i­fiers for teams from the Amer­i­c­as Fed­er­a­tion of Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tions in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines in Oc­to­ber.

Re­act­ing to the Com­mon­wealth Games op­po­nents, John­son told Guardian Me­dia Sport, yes­ter­day that, “The group we were placed in­to is a very com­pet­i­tive group with teams ranked in the first ten in the world. Our po­si­tion as num­ber 11 (in the world) is just a num­ber. What can make the dif­fer­ence is what we put in­to it and how ded­i­cat­ed we are.”

John­son added, “The team needs to have a mind­set that they are go­ing to com­pete. We need to build their con­fi­dence so their play­ing abil­i­ty will be at its peak and make a good show­ing. We need to play our best net­ball with all the teams.”

John­son and her tech­ni­cal staff con­duct­ed four screen­ing ses­sions ear­li­er this month in the search for play­ers to rep­re­sent the team. The head coach re­vealed that work has been on­go­ing to pre­pare the team both on and off the court.

“I’m in the process of watch­ing games that these teams have played. I’m try­ing to iden­ti­fy what sys­tem of play they use, their team dy­nam­ics, and to find ways to be able to suc­cess­ful­ly work around what they put for­ward,” she said.

“For the next six months with the squad that we have in train­ing right now, I en­vi­sion first­ly build­ing a team that is based on good team dy­nam­ics, that un­der­stands each oth­er, and that ap­pre­ci­ates the wealth of knowl­edge, ex­pe­ri­ence and in­ex­pe­ri­ence that the team has. We are still in the gen­er­al prep phase, and there are is­sues and lit­tle things that we have been try­ing to sort out in or­der to get them func­tion­al. These are the mi­nor hic­cups that would even­tu­al­ly be sort­ed out.”

Group A of the net­ball tour­na­ment in Glas­gow will fea­ture four-time cham­pi­ons Aus­tralia, the top-ranked team in the world, who beat Ja­maica 55-51 in the 2022 fi­nal, Eng­land (#4), South Africa (#5), Malawi (#8), Ton­ga (#9) and North­ern Ire­land, ranked 12th.

Hav­ing most re­cent­ly host­ed the Com­mon­wealth Games in 2014, Glas­gow will once again wel­come the Com­mon­wealth Games, step­ping in af­ter the Aus­tralian state of Vic­to­ria with­drew due to ris­ing costs.

How­ev­er, the 23rd edi­tion of the event, from Ju­ly 23 to Au­gust 2, 2026, will be a much small­er ver­sion. Ten sports will be fea­tured, in­clud­ing ath­let­ics and para-ath­let­ics (track & field), swim­ming and para swim­ming, artis­tic gym­nas­tics, track cy­cling and para track cy­cling, net­ball, weightlift­ing and para pow­er­lift­ing, box­ing, ju­do, bowls and para bowls, 3x3 bas­ket­ball and 3x3 wheel­chair bas­ket­ball.

A dozen oth­er sports that were staged at the most re­cent Com­mon­wealth Games in Birm­ing­ham 2022 were dropped from the pro­gramme, al­low­ing Scot­tish of­fi­cials to de­liv­er a low-cost Games in less than two years.

The Games have un­der­gone a re­struc­tur­ing, and sev­er­al sports that were part of the 2022 edi­tion have been cut or have not been in­clud­ed in the ini­tial pro­gramme. Over 1,800 ath­letes few­er than in 2022; here’s a com­par­i­son of which sports were cut or are no­tably miss­ing:

Div­ing (Aquat­ics), Bad­minton, Beach Vol­ley­ball, Crick­et (Women’s T20), Moun­tain Bik­ing, Rhyth­mic Gym­nas­tics, Field Hock­ey, Para Pow­er­lift­ing, Rug­by Sev­ens, Squash, Ta­ble Ten­nis, Triathlon, and Wrestling.

These cuts re­flect a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in the va­ri­ety of sports for 2026. Some core sports like swim­ming, ath­let­ics, and net­ball re­main, but oth­er pop­u­lar events, es­pe­cial­ly in the para-sports cat­e­go­ry and some team sports, have been ex­clud­ed from the 2026 line­up.

As many as 3,000 ath­letes from 74 Com­mon­wealth na­tions are ex­pect­ed to com­pete. Events will take place at four venues—Scot­stoun Sta­di­um, Toll­cross In­ter­na­tion­al Swim­ming Cen­tre, Emi­rates Are­na (in­clud­ing the Sir Chris Hoy Velo­drome), and the Scot­tish Event Cam­pus.