Winning the National Sports Council’s (NSC) Sports Personality Of The Year Award is a cherished honour for Shai Hope.
As he approaches this year, however, he hopes that similar performances can redound to the benefit of the team.
The 24-year-old cricketer, whose bumper year was highlighted by twin centuries that propelled West Indies to a memorable Test triumph against England at Headingley last August, beat out a host of rivals, including tennis ace Darian King, top surfer Chelsea Tuach and rising squash sensation Meagan Best to win the top award at the NSC’s 35th annual sports awards ceremony at the Frank Collymore Hall on Saturday night.
There was an air of expectancy when the announcement was made before a packed hall that included three of the island’s most distinguished cricketers: Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Everton Weekes and Sir Wesley Hall.
“It means a lot to have so many people appreciating your achievements over the last year. It definitely means a lot. I appreciate everything,” Hope said moments after the ceremony.
“It is now sinking in. I know that there are many other top athletes in the region and in Barbados. Getting such an award means a lot.”
In addition to Hope’s Headingley heroics, the classy right-hander also carved out 90s against Pakistan and Zimbabwe in winning causes and also scored heavily on the regional front, fashioning centuries in the final and semi-final of the Super50 to go along with a record seven dismissals in the semis. Limited to four matches in the Professional Cricket League Regional 4-Day Tournament, he also impressed with a second career double-century on the way to an average of 75.40.
While many regard the turnaround at international level to a shift from the top of the order to a more accustomed middle order position, Hope didn’t read too much into it and instead attributed his success to “just sticking to it and trusting the process”.
“I always stick to that phrase and I know that as long as I trust the process, success would come eventually,” he said.
“It’s a situation where you don’t get to do everything you want to do on the field but it all boils down to what the team requires of you at that point in time. It’s just learning on the job and learning as quickly as you can, transferring the low scores or failures into something good.”
Interestingly enough, Hope believes he gained more satisfaction from his 90 against Pakistan at Kensington Oval simply because it was in front of his home fans, family and friends.
In looking ahead to 2018, he puts high on the list of his goals a desire for West Indies to achieve success.
“I really just want more wins as a team. We’ve been working harder but we can go a step further. The main thing for me is to put as many wins on the board as possible. Whatever I can possibly do, I’ll try to do that to get some more wins,” he said.
“It is always disappointing not being on the winning side. Playing a sport, you’re not going out there for the sake of it, you want to win, to play to have something to talk about when you retire. Having said that, I still think there is a lot of work to do.”
Hope was also named the Senior Outstanding Sportsperson (Male) while King, the first Barbadian to reach the main draw of a tennis Grand Slam when he qualified for the US Open, had to settle for the Minister’s Award and the Performance Of The Year.
Tuach was named Senior Outstanding Sportsperson (Female) on the strength of winning Barbados’ first silver medal at the Pan American Surfing Games, a fifth place at the World Surfing League’s Qualification Series 3000 Chiba Open and ending the WSL’s North American season ranked at No. 2 and No. 25 on the international rankings, the highest ever by a Barbadian.
Best collected the Junior Outstanding Sportsperson (Female) award after retaining her senior Caribbean women’s title, winning gold at the Junior US Open and silver at the Junior Canadian Open, while chess player Orlando Husbands won the male equivalent for becoming the first Barbadian to win Central American and Caribbean Under-20 gold in 31 years, his elevation to International Master and a third successive CARIFTA Under-20 gold. (HG)