Trinidad and Tobago and, indeed, the entire region remains awed by the way in which this country’s cricket team has blazed its way into today’s Twenty/20 final. It is not, of course, that the team had not established its credentials, having conclusively demonstrated its superiority in competitions in this format held in the region. But the Champions League featured many of the top players in the world and the local team has reached where it is without losing a single game in the Indian sub-continent.

Moreover, it is also the manner in which it has won that has drawn international admiration since it has played with such panache throughout that the cricket world has seen in its performances a playback of the West Indian way that won so many fans even before we reached the top of the sport and, more so, when our dominance became unquestioned.

In the context of the regional team’s fall from grace since then, the ascent of the local team could not have come at a more crucial, and one would even say more telling time, given the disarray that has long ruptured the regional game and the questions raised about the commitment, if not talent , of the well-paid players who, at times, appeared not to understand the legacy with which they had been left.

That is the last thing one could say about the Trinbagonians who are currently carrying Trinidad and Tobago’s cricket flag. Whatever the wealth they have won, they have been driven by a patriotism that has seen them giving their all and it is to the credit of the team that its spokesmen have been careful to declare that what they have been doing is for Trinidad and Tobago ’and by extension’ the whole of the West Indies.

It would be a churlish West Indian, indeed, who would not concur even as it would be a churlish Trinbagonian who would deny his regional fellows a share of the lifting of the spirits that our team has engendered. No overnight wonder, the team’s success has been achieved as a result of government funding, administrative planning and player discipline under the captaincy of Daren Ganga whose leadership has been outstanding.

Our commendation and thanks go out to this squad for the hard work they have put in and for raising anew that sense of possibility without which advances are hardly likely to take place - and not only in the field of cricket either.