Ter­rence Hinds up­root­ing of Guyana’s Nial Smith’s off-stump not on­ly crowned Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Force crick­eters as re­gion­al Four-Day cham­pi­ons but end­ed two decades of re­gion­al heart­break.

For the first time since 2006, the T&T Red Force are the West In­dies Cham­pi­onship, Four-Day kings. As the team re­turned home to a well-de­served he­roes' wel­come at Pi­ar­co, T&T Crick­et Board (TTCB) pres­i­dent Az­im Bas­sarath made a pub­lic plea that needs to be echoed from every cor­ner of our twin is­lands: this team must be be­stowed with a na­tion­al award.

Our na­tion­al ho­n­ours are de­signed to cel­e­brate cit­i­zens who ren­der dis­tin­guished ser­vice to the coun­try. Too of­ten, we re­serve these ac­co­lades ex­clu­sive­ly for in­di­vid­ual Olympic glo­ry or cul­tur­al icons, over­look­ing the pro­found na­tion-build­ing im­pact of a col­lec­tive sport­ing tri­umph.

Last year, the gov­ern­ment set a prece­dent by ho­n­our­ing the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR) fran­chise af­ter it de­feat­ed the Guyana Ama­zon War­riors to win its record-break­ing fifth Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) ti­tle. If a fran­chise com­pris­ing in­ter­na­tion­al crick­eters can be cel­e­brat­ed at the high­est state lev­el, then the Red Force squad—com­pris­ing en­tire­ly sons of our soil—de­serves noth­ing less.

The jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for a na­tion­al award rests heav­i­ly on the sheer weight of what the team has ac­com­plished. First-Class crick­et is uni­ver­sal­ly ac­knowl­edged as a sound quin­tes­sen­tial test of crick­et­ing skills. Un­like oth­er for­mats such as T20 or 50 overs, First-Class crick­et is a gru­elling ex­am­i­na­tion of crick­et skills, men­tal for­ti­tude, char­ac­ter, dis­ci­pline, strate­gic plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion. This was best demon­strat­ed by Evin Lewis re­silient 122 runs in the sec­ond in­nings and the as­tro­nom­i­cal pres­sure of the fi­nal day, yet the char­ac­ter shown by our men was flaw­less.

Con­sid­er the in­di­vid­ual sac­ri­fices and bril­liance that coloured this cam­paign. We saw a lethal, home­grown pace at­tack func­tion like a beau­ti­ful­ly syn­chro­nised ma­chine. Jay­den Seales—who al­so smashed a maid­en First-Class fifty—led the line with an un­for­get­table match haul of 7 for 95. Along­side him, Hinds, An­der­son Phillip, and Joshua James hunt­ed in a pack, re­morse­less­ly ex­tract­ing all ten Guyanese wick­ets on the fi­nal day.

This 2026 tri­umph al­so served as a po­et­ic crown­ing achieve­ment for our long-serv­ing stal­warts. Both Evin Lewis and vet­er­an cam­paign­er Ja­son Mo­hammed an­nounced their re­tire­ment from First-Class crick­et im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the vic­to­ry. Their fi­nal chap­ters in the red, white, and black en­sured they left re­gion­al crick­et at the ab­solute sum­mit be­fore bow­ing out.

When our play­ers ex­cel on the world stage, they mar­ket T&T to bil­lions of view­ers glob­al­ly. When they break a 20-year drought, they val­i­date our lo­cal sport­ing iden­ti­ty. At a time when our so­ci­ety des­per­ate­ly craves pos­i­tive role mod­els, es­pe­cial­ly males and uni­fy­ing na­tion­al nar­ra­tives, the Red Force has hand­ed us a mas­ter­piece.

The Cab­i­net and the na­tion­al awards com­mit­tee must act swift­ly. Be­stow­ing a na­tion­al award on this team is not just a ges­ture of grat­i­tude; it is a de­c­la­ra­tion that this coun­try val­ues the grit, the sweat, and the red-hot pride it takes to bring re­gion­al su­prema­cy back home. They kept their promise to us. It is time to ho­n­our them.