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Caribbean Cricket Podcast

Time to expand the West Indies talent pool

17 Feb 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is the statement about West Indies cricket talent?

1.263 - 17.982 Kimo Aroach

Mr. Minister of Budget, why is the information exchange being held in such a large warehouse? Because the smaller ones aren't enough. Exactly. Now we've put everything into the game. Everything into the game? The game, walking, running, all kinds of excursions and activities. I don't quite understand. I'll put it in three words. Putkesport's huge warehouse emptying offers something to everyone.

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18.002 - 61.201 Kimo Aroach

Look at putkesport.fi. This is Kimo Aroach and I listen to the Caribbean Cricket Podcast.

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61.261 - 78.616 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

Welcome back to another edition of the Caribbean Cricket Podcast. No snazzy intro for this one because I'm trying something new. Look at the high-tech visuals. Look at the cleanness. of the visuals, you've got the palm trees behind me from an undisclosed location in Jamaica.

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79.157 - 97.248 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

So I wanted to touch on something that we discussed last night on the live call-in show, and it's about the Caribbean diaspora. I know this is a very touchy subject, for some people who follow West Indies cricket, but I felt that I just needed to rewind and come back again to this particular issue.

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97.308 - 118.969 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

Now, first things first, if you're a long-time supporter, follower of the Caribbean Cricket Podcast, you will know that I have addressed this before, and there's an episode from about six months ago where I identified about anywhere between seven, I think it was seven to eight players who currently play their cricket, whether in Australia or the United Kingdom, who I said are

118.949 - 148.669 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

illegible to play for the West Indies and since that episode was recorded I've interviewed different people in the upper echelons of cricket West Indies and said have you ever considered reaching out to the diaspora sorry people I was just checking if this was even recording I can't even tell one second is this even recording I believe it is recording apologies people so and when I spoke to the people in the upper echelons I said to them have you considered reaching out to the diaspora and without

148.649 - 164.329 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

This isn't about digging anyone out. This isn't about calling anyone out. But the impression I was given was this was something that hadn't really occurred to people within cricket West Indies or the wider conglomerate that is West Indies cricket.

164.95 - 188.832 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

Now, I understand that for some people within the region, the mere suggestion or notion of reaching out beyond our Caribbean borders to embrace people who, maybe like myself, were born in the Caribbean. So myself, I was born in Jamaica, and then we moved to the UK. So there's plenty of people like myself, for example, who would have been born in the Caribbean, moved abroad,

188.812 - 208.776 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

but consider themselves very much sons, daughters of the soil, et cetera. Then there's others whose parents would have moved abroad, whether, again, to the United Kingdom, North America, somewhere else in the world, and they've had children in those countries that they've moved to, and those children by default are also sons and daughters of the soil.

Chapter 2: Why is the Caribbean diaspora important for cricket talent?

509.972 - 531.404 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

We didn't have the facilities then, We had an abundance of talent though. So when people say talent's not the issue, when we won the T20 World Cup in 2012 and 2016, we didn't have facilities then either. Grassroots coaching was horrendous then as well. We didn't have the funding then, but we still managed to win two T20 World Cups.

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531.665 - 558.42 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

So when people say to me, talent's not the issue, I hear you, but talent means you can do stuff. So I look at the current iterations of West Indies sides, and I question this idea that we've still got the talent, because we don't win. We don't win very often. So actually, do we have the talent? Now, let's extrapolate that to, again, I'm in Jamaica, so that's why I'm using Jamaica as an example.

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560.122 - 584.23 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

Could the reggae boys get to the FIFA World Cup on domestic players alone, right? I'm sure there's some people in Jamaica who would love to argue that, yeah, we could still make a World Cup and we could beat Mexico and we could beat United States, Costa Rica, Honduras, Canada, and still make a World Cup just with domestic players. That's nonsense. That will never happen in my lifetime.

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584.21 - 606.437 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

knowledgeable Jamaica reggae boys fans would say, yeah, we should be reaching out to our diaspora and picking up the very best talent who have links to Jamaica through ancestry, through their parents, whatever it might be, and utilize that talent, particularly if they've got a love for the island and a love for Jamaica. Generally speaking, everybody accepts that, right?

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606.417 - 625.422 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

Now, if we accept that the domestic based talent is not enough to get to a FIFA World Cup, again, let's pass it over to the West Indies. Why can we not make that same assessment for the West Indies that maybe our domestic based West Indian talent isn't enough?

627.089 - 646.397 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

And if there's a colonial hangover that people have because it's cricket and obviously cricket is a colonial game and there's all that kind of, for some people there's a hangover that we have to get past in the kind of realms of cricket. I think we need to look past that now.

646.377 - 662.637 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

So on the thumbnail for this particular video, you'll see, the sun's in the background, boy, I don't know how this is coming across in the video, but on the thumbnail for this particular video, you'll see that I've included Joel and Olly Davies.

662.697 - 676.654 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

So again, if you haven't seen the previous video I did six months ago, Joel and Olly Davies play in Australia, and they have come up through the Australian first-class cricket system. Their mother is from Trinidad, right?

677.135 - 697.782 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

And they've done multiple interviews in Australia, the two of them, where they said that they grew up supporting Australia and the West Indies because their Trini mum made them still feel a kind of inherent connection to the Caribbean, even though they grew up in Australia. But their mum is Trini.

Chapter 3: How does the concept of citizenship relate to cricket eligibility?

1181.046 - 1203.778 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

I think 90% of that squad who represented Jamaica in the Rugby League World Cup all came from the United Kingdom. They all were from like the Northern half of the country, had all grown up in the Northern half of the country, had accepted the call to come and play rugby league for Jamaica. Let me tell you something. You see, when I met that team, every single one of those players

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1203.758 - 1225.231 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

were so proud to represent Jamaica in the World Cup. You couldn't tell me that none of them were just doing it for the ride and just happy to play in the World Cup and it just happened to be Jamaica. They were representing Jamaica like they had lived in Jamaica their whole life. Every single one of them was proud to be put in on the jersey and representing Jamaica on the world stage.

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1225.792 - 1242.46 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

That's how Jamaica created history. They reached out to their wider diaspora and got to a World Cup off the back of it. Why is it different for the West Indies? Again, the comments below, people, you already know how it goes. Like, share, subscribe. You already know all of that jazz.

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1242.5 - 1265.053 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

If you want to support the Caribbean Cricket Podcast, you can become a patron for as little as $2, 2 yen, 2 rupee, 2 pounds, whatever your currency is. All the clicks and links are in the descriptor below. But more importantly of all, share this with who needs to listen to it. More content's coming. Sun's shining hot. Jamaica's treating me nice.

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1265.674 - 1277.86 Machel St Patrick Hewitt

I'm eating ground provision, saltfish, cabbage, ackee all day, every day. I might not go home. I might just stay here and represent Jamaica on the world stage. I'll see you all very, very soon.

1301.802 - 1326.257

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