PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Sprinter Kelly-Ann Baptiste and West Indies batsman Darren Bravo were named the Trinidad & Tobago Sportswoman and Sportsman-of-the-Year.
This followed the inaugural version of the re-branded Spirit of Sport Awards on Wednesday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
The 25-year-old Baptiste grabbed a bronze medal in the women’s 100 metres at this year’s World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, clocking 10.98 seconds to finish behind American winner Carmelita Jeter and Jamaica’s Veronica Campbell-Brown.
She became the first female sprinter from the two-island republic to earn a medal at a global championship which also helped to earn her the Best Sport Performance award.
Baptiste was also part of the T&T 4x100m women’s relay team which finished fourth at the World Championships, earning them the Team Performance-of-the-Year award.
The 22-year-old Bravo was one of the most consistent batsmen for West Indies in the past year, earning the top men’s performance award.
He gathered 949 runs at an average of 49.94 in 20 innings from 10 matches, scoring three hundreds and three half-centuries.
His 195 against Bangladesh at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium last month was his maiden Test hundred and his highest score for the year, and he followed up with two hundreds in successive Tests against India on the road.
Bravo also scored 511 runs at 30.05 in 20 innings from 21 One-day Internationals, and supported with 90 runs at an average of 30.00 from three innings in the same number of Twenty20 Internationals.
The other big winner of the night was West Indies Women’s off-spinner Anisa Mohammed. She claimed awards for the Best Breakthrough Performance, Most Consistent Performer and Record-breaking Performance of the Year.
Her breakthrough and record-breaking performances came in the Women’s ODI format of the game, when she captured seven wickets for 14 runs from 8.3 overs against Pakistan Women in Bangladesh to help West Indies Women win the ICC Women’s World Cup qualifier.
This followed a home series three months earlier in which she grabbed two five-wicket hauls against the same opponents to help the Windies Women dominate.
Mohammed was the most successful bowler in Women’s One-day International during the last year, claiming 37 scalps at an average of 7.05 which bore testimony to her consistent performances. She also grabbed 10 wickets at 12.30 apiece in seven T20Is this year.
