Latest / Let's Kick It Off! / Ep 38: Carlos Brathwaite Exclusive (Pt. 2) on Cricket, World Cup Glory & Psychology

Transcript

Ep 38: Carlos Brathwaite Exclusive (Pt. 2) on Cricket, World Cup Glory & Psychology · Let's Kick It Off!

• 0:00
  This podcast is sponsored by Go Play Sports, the brand new
• 0:04
  mobile app Changing the game for grassroots.
• 0:07
  Whether it's Sunday League or five aside, Go Play Sports makes
• 0:10
  it easy to track attendance, manage teams and cut out the
• 0:13
  manual admin. No more endless group chats, no
• 0:16
  more chasing payments. Just turn up and play Go Play
• 0:20
  Sports. Download now from your App
• 0:22
  Store. Well, we obviously have to talk
• 0:38
  about your cricket career, Carla.
• 0:40
  So I guess give us the brief background of how you got into
• 0:43
  cricket and like, you know, were there any other sports when you
• 0:45
  were young? Obviously you love football now.
• 0:47
  Did that start when you were young?
• 0:48
  Tell us about how you got into sport.
• 0:50
  Generally cricket. To be honest, cricket in the
• 0:52
  Caribbean is quite similar to football in the UK, much of A
• 0:57
  religion. Barbados, right?
• 0:59
  Just to, yeah. Barbados.
• 1:01
  My dad, yeah, born in Barbados. My dad was a Highway Tucket fan
• 1:04
  as well, so he didn't play for Barbados but would play a club
• 1:08
  cricket every weekend and was known in her own club cricket.
• 1:13
  Got some stories about him? That would have been high
• 1:16
  standards as well right back in those days.
• 1:18
  Yeah, good standards. Yeah.
• 1:20
  No, he's a little short man feeling that short and he still
• 1:24
  reminds me that he has the most catches in a Danish player in
• 1:28
  law, cricket and Barbados still a record till today.
• 1:31
  What's that? Feeling that Charlotte, he got 7
• 1:33
  catches in one day. Wow yeah OK, so the love started
• 1:40
  there. We go to watch cricket or my dad
• 1:43
  a lot, but he told me. How old was that, Carlos?
• 1:46
  Just just to clarify. That was working Backtrack.
• 1:48
  No, because he told me that. Three years old.
• 1:51
  I was driving the ball better than they do now.
• 1:53
  So years old, apparently going to play.
• 1:57
  But yeah, some 3 year old then he.
• 2:00
  Used to come home from work, he would work at the brewery and he
• 2:04
  would just I'd meet him, but he'd do it with a bat on the
• 2:07
  ball and he just under the ball and they would eventually learn
• 2:10
  to hit the ball, try the ball. Brilliant.
• 2:13
  And I think that's where he love came from.
• 2:14
  And my dad and then going to cricket with him, as I mentioned
• 2:18
  for so from all around downtime, 3-4 years or go to cricket with
• 2:22
  him. He took me to cricket awards and
• 2:24
  I locked myself in the car, got me to put the out of Chinese
• 2:27
  Noble awards and encouraged my mommy.
• 2:30
  There were also stories about him pushing me into cricket
• 2:34
  before probably I was ready and thankful to him for it.
• 2:39
  And then my cousin plays as well, Jonathan Carter.
• 2:41
  He played for West Indies as well.
• 2:42
  So some of vacations and stuff, we'd be heated #2 Brexit, he is
• 2:48
  as aggressive or even more aggressive than I was.
• 2:51
  So we have a few fights playing cricket.
• 2:54
  Not a lot. No bats involved.
• 2:56
  Yeah, or balls. No one wanted to give up and I
• 3:02
  all used to look up to him. He's a little bit older than me
• 3:04
  but a few months. But he's probably the best under
• 3:07
  11 cricketer in the history of Barbados double cricket.
• 3:10
  I remember he got 100 and my dad told me he scored 100.
• 3:13
  I was like, you mean his team? They used to play I think 35 or
• 3:16
  cricket or something like that. And then he ran a step further
• 3:20
  like 2-3 games later and got 110 wickets in the same game.
• 3:24
  So like as a youngster, like he was my cigar from solvers and he
• 3:28
  used to play together. So the love of cricket, I guess
• 3:31
  surrounding me from a very young age.
• 3:34
  And yeah, I think from looking at other sports, I've always
• 3:37
  loved football. I think my first team like
• 3:40
  support was Fiorentina. Oh right, battist duty.
• 3:44
  Yeah. And we cost them.
• 3:47
  Yeah, he doesn't like Argentinian.
• 3:49
  So you're going to support Portugal if you like 2 of them.
• 3:53
  And then obviously we're now to come on the circuit.
• 3:55
  So it was perfect. You're a big David de Gaya man
• 3:59
  then. Yeah, at the moment.
• 4:01
  Here, I'm always a king. I would love to go watch a game
• 4:04
  in Shortena to be honest. Have you been to Florence?
• 4:07
  No, have I never been to Italy? But.
• 4:10
  Oh, man, you gotta go. Yeah, They miss it now, yeah.
• 4:13
  Yeah, so me and the Message won't do all several wonders in
• 4:16
  the world. So maybe I can just have on a
• 4:18
  couple of years and not to give. So yeah, but I got offered a
• 4:23
  basketball scholarship at secondary school and I left.
• 4:27
  You just went and played because you were struggling and we had
• 4:30
  this kind of coach character. Story really lost our first game
• 4:34
  but like 6 or something points. So he got fouled up, being
• 4:36
  overly aggressive, not quite understanding basketball and
• 4:40
  then we eventually. Made the great film by the way.
• 4:44
  Yeah, top, top, top film. Top film.
• 4:48
  Maybe we ended up making the finals in the cup, I got more so
• 4:52
  standing player and we came at AI think third in the league,
• 4:56
  which was like amazing for us. The attainment on the back of
• 5:02
  that, the offer, the scholarship.
• 5:03
  But I don't really love basketball, love it a lot more
• 5:07
  now. But you always know the sports
• 5:08
  personally again, the trenches, you are really love the sport to
• 5:12
  continue and it felt as though if I had a rough period in
• 5:14
  basketball, I just give up. Cricket was always that first
• 5:18
  true love and I felt as though, you know, I was born to be a
• 5:23
  cricketer type of thing. And in terms of being like
• 5:28
  selected for the West Indies, like when did that happen?
• 5:32
  Like the first time? Was that school cricket or like
• 5:35
  a little bit older, like late teens?
• 5:37
  How did that happen? Well, I'd say my first W Indies
• 5:42
  selection wasn't officially W Indies.
• 5:44
  So we played. We said yeah after.
• 5:46
  So it was schools tournament. It was schools from Barbados all
• 5:50
  around the world and Indian schools invited to the
• 5:54
  tournament and as I guess kind of building a partnership, they
• 5:59
  had the Commonwealth Games in India the next year.
• 6:02
  So they invited, they invited the Cigar Field Sobers
• 6:07
  tournament to pick a W Indies 11 and send it to the Commonwealth
• 6:11
  Games under the banner of the West Indies.
• 6:15
  And they made that team out 1410.
• 6:20
  That was 2004 16, Yep, 16 went to India, scored 100.
• 6:32
  I think Abd Villiers and JP Duminy played for South Africa
• 6:35
  and they won. Nice.
• 6:37
  So that was my first brush with regional selection, but.
• 6:41
  Where did he bat in the order of interest?
• 6:44
  Oh, OK. So it was an opener slash #3
• 6:47
  growing. Yep.
• 6:48
  Well, big rail. Drop it fan would be the other
• 6:53
  end way everybody else scores and yeah the hundred came off
• 6:59
  100 and something boils under 15.
• 7:01
  I got 98 about it all 50 overs. So yeah, it was actually a
• 7:05
  batter, not a swiper as I am, no.
• 7:11
  It's amazing how you know, it's like in football, right?
• 7:15
  You speak to like defenders, they started a striker at like
• 7:18
  the age of 10, then they're centre midfield at 15 and by the
• 7:22
  time they're 18 it's like they've they're playing centre
• 7:25
  back or full back because you know, they they didn't grow and
• 7:28
  stuff like that. So it's always.
• 7:29
  Interesting to see it was a goalkeeper.
• 7:33
  Sorry, but. It was too boring.
• 7:36
  Yes, exactly. So that tells you everything.
• 7:41
  And then obviously in terms of like your international career,
• 7:46
  so tell us like your first selection and what was that
• 7:51
  feeling like as well? So I got hey, I got a lot of it
• 7:56
  to Floyd, reefer player for Barbados in the T20.
• 8:01
  Then was it selected in the first class team?
• 8:06
  Jason Holland was breaking through.
• 8:07
  He was the Golden Boy straight out over season 19 and I think
• 8:11
  everyone knew what he would go on to become.
• 8:13
  So I got pushed to the side a little bit.
• 8:15
  Frederick was like come and play for combine campuses and
• 8:19
  colleges. You play in the same tournament
• 8:21
  just under the banner of the university as opposed to the
• 8:24
  country. Didn't play the first game but
• 8:28
  somebody got injured I think in the 2nd and the 3rd game and I
• 8:31
  came in, got 7 phone debut and then ended the season as the
• 8:36
  highest and seen bowling with the theatre with a couple of 50s
• 8:40
  to boot. Buying at 8:00 and then got
• 8:43
  called up for the Bangladesh series in 2011.
• 8:47
  So straight off the back of the series rolling holders.
• 8:50
  The one that called me and I thought it was a little bit of a
• 8:52
  prank at first, so I was like. How do they, how do they
• 8:57
  announce it in those days, you know, would they tell you?
• 9:01
  Was it a text message? Call to call and thank you.
• 9:05
  Alice is Roland. I was like, yeah, hi Roland.
• 9:07
  I'm getting on. So yeah, cool.
• 9:09
  Just call in to see it because it is at that time they used to
• 9:15
  ask. They used to basically ask you
• 9:17
  if you accept selection. Yeah, because I remember those
• 9:21
  days, like international, they used to do that.
• 9:24
  Right. So I can't remember if it was
• 9:27
  back then but I think you just said do you accept selection or
• 9:31
  you was like just letting know you were selected for the
• 9:34
  Bangladesh trip. And then I got my Bangladesh
• 9:39
  visa. My Indian visa made my debut in
• 9:43
  T 20s got hammered I think Bangladesh 25 or something like
• 9:48
  that. Sammy told me the ball and by
• 9:49
  the end of my over they only like 6.
• 9:52
  Lost the game and then made my audio debut.
• 9:54
  We got a ball of like 50 odd and then it is C India.
• 9:58
  There was no India trick for careless right?
• 10:03
  But I'm playing W Indies here. And yeah, so it was, it was to
• 10:10
  to get the the call obviously was a dream come true.
• 10:13
  And it took me back to on the 15 level when they didn't meet the
• 10:18
  cap in one of the years. And I cried on my mum's lap.
• 10:21
  And we sat down in the days after and she was like, what do
• 10:24
  you want to do? Or what do you want to be a
• 10:26
  cricket? And to be honest, I told her at
• 10:28
  that time, I said I want to play for Barbados on the 15 and
• 10:32
  Barbados on the 19. I want to play for Barbados.
• 10:36
  I want to play for SNDS, I want to be a leader, so I want to
• 10:39
  captain Barbados and he want captain W Indies and he wanted
• 10:44
  the World Cup. And by time I got 28, I'd
• 10:49
  accomplished all those things and they went through a little
• 10:51
  bit of a rat where it was just like, what next?
• 10:55
  Like I really got next and look forward to you here.
• 10:59
  Store your goals and it's like you had to find out to find a
• 11:03
  purpose. So like through the whole
• 11:05
  process of talking to a psychologist took some time off
• 11:11
  at the back end of 2018 and then it was just like, or you need to
• 11:16
  find your purpose. And at that time it was like
• 11:20
  long term goals, short term goals.
• 11:22
  And one of the long term goals was 30.
• 11:25
  It was 30 then play until 35, give the next five years your
• 11:30
  best shot in the gym, you're eating your training and try to
• 11:35
  make it go 35. And then short term I want to be
• 11:38
  in our World Cup team in 2019 and I kind of had mental
• 11:45
  breakdown, if I could call it that, during the World Cup
• 11:49
  qualifiers in 2018. So it was real party not to be
• 11:54
  like, OK, we've qualified. None of the big boys were there
• 11:57
  out of the Sam Bills camera. I don't think GAIL was there
• 12:01
  speak under correction. But the big boys weren't there.
• 12:05
  And it was just like we could easily find a situation where we
• 12:08
  qualify for the World Cup or go through the qualification
• 12:12
  process and then half of us are not there in England 19.
• 12:16
  So it was like everything you do between now and 2019 is geared
• 12:19
  towards making our World Cup team and again Floyd Reefer
• 12:23
  comes to me and Sears and usually come and play for CCC.
• 12:27
  The captain you bat at 5 and you'd have more responsibility
• 12:30
  if you are beyond our player in 2019.
• 12:33
  You can't play for Barbados, bat at A&B second out to change
• 12:38
  bowler and just make up the numbers is probably should win
• 12:42
  with Barbados. But you need a bigger role and
• 12:47
  sat on it for a little bit and then I went back to him and just
• 12:50
  let you know I want the challenge.
• 12:51
  So they walked to the BC. I told them they want to play
• 12:54
  for CCC. These are the reasons why they
• 12:57
  accepted it. And then they went on to play
• 13:00
  for CC, Captain CC and he won. That was the first time and only
• 13:04
  time up until now that he called.
• 13:06
  My campuses and colleges have won the List A tournament.
• 13:11
  I got best all rounder then went on to make the World Cup team
• 13:16
  for 2019. So yeah, that kind of pause and
• 13:20
  reset at the back end of 2018 was really important for me
• 13:25
  moving forward. Yeah, that's really interesting
• 13:29
  actually, because you know, a lot of people when they think
• 13:31
  Carlos Brathway, they obviously think 2016, remember the name,
• 13:34
  what you did about against Ben Stokes, obviously with the
• 13:37
  Sixes. But I think it's actually really
• 13:39
  interesting because you see this with other sports stars.
• 13:41
  I think the one that springs to mind is Tyson Fury when he he
• 13:46
  beat Klitschko, right? He won all the belts and that
• 13:48
  was his dream as a kid and he felt he accomplished his dream.
• 13:52
  So where'd you go from that? So you do actually see this
• 13:54
  across sports, right? So when you spoke to your kind
• 13:56
  of psychologist, I think there's a theory reason about Olympic,
• 13:59
  Olympic participants as well, like when they reached the gold
• 14:02
  medal, it's quite a common thing.
• 14:04
  Like is did the therapist talk to you about other people
• 14:07
  experiencing that in other sports and it being common?
• 14:10
  He did say it was common and we kind of got there through
• 14:16
  talking, so I didn't. I wasn't aware of why I didn't
• 14:20
  feel motivated and why I felt as though it was a chore to go on
• 14:24
  another tour and to go on the gym and to get training.
• 14:28
  Hey Jeff, let me just do it. Let me just stick a ball.
• 14:30
  Let me stick a ball. But I could realise my intensity
• 14:32
  was dropping. So as we were speaking, he was
• 14:36
  just asking me, it was your purpose.
• 14:38
  I was just saying what do you mean that was my purpose?
• 14:41
  If you got any goals in life. And that was where he spit it
• 14:44
  out. He was like, well, careless,
• 14:45
  like that's the problem right there.
• 14:46
  And then, no, you don't have anything beyond just watching
• 14:50
  the ball that you are playing towards.
• 14:53
  That gives you motivation and gives you purpose to get out of
• 14:56
  bed and to go and fight towards something.
• 15:00
  At that time, we didn't have a child.
• 15:02
  Now I think that first purpose is your child regardless.
• 15:05
  But at that time it was like, you know, what were you saying
• 15:09
  making sense? And that's why then probably
• 15:12
  turned down one or two six figure contracts at that time
• 15:15
  just to be home and just to get back into the frame of mind of
• 15:21
  what this man is saying is making sense.
• 15:23
  You aren't really need to be mentally and you need to find a
• 15:28
  way to move forward. So upon realising, OK, that is
• 15:33
  the challenge, then how do you mitigate it and how do you move
• 15:36
  forward? And that's when the short term
• 15:39
  goals and long term goals to play and you almost give
• 15:42
  yourself something that again, it's another goal that you know
• 15:45
  of set and not necessarily a therapist.
• 15:48
  I don't think that would have worked for me.
• 15:51
  But when you set your own goals and you're comfortable to
• 15:54
  yourself, then is like, OK, you're giving yourself 35,
• 15:58
  you're only 33. There's only two more years.
• 16:02
  You can't let yourself down. So yeah, I think those five
• 16:07
  years between 30 and 35 were probably some of the most
• 16:10
  enjoyable year, some of the most successful in winning trophies,
• 16:13
  giving back to the game. You really, really enjoyed them
• 16:17
  to be honest. I think it's maturity as well,
• 16:20
  right, Carlos, Like, like I said before, I'm similar age to you
• 16:23
  and like in your 30s, you just know more in life, you know,
• 16:27
  whether it's sports and just like personal, I mean, it's
• 16:30
  massively underestimated in cricket just how many days
• 16:35
  international players, you know, spend away from home.
• 16:39
  I remember, you know, the Sky Sports pundits, how they used to
• 16:43
  like lay into the English cricketers and they just, and
• 16:48
  even though they did it themselves, they just didn't
• 16:51
  appreciate like, you know, the international calendar is just
• 16:53
  absolutely jam packed. And like you said, you got
• 16:56
  franchise cricket. So you spend so much time in
• 16:58
  like hotels and just not familiar places, right?
• 17:02
  So I think, you know, you can extend that to obviously every
• 17:06
  other sports as well, but I think cricket in particular,
• 17:10
  because obviously, you know, to the listeners who don't follow
• 17:14
  cricket, like there's a way towards and, and you know, you
• 17:17
  have to travel to the places like Australia and you spend
• 17:20
  like, you know, two months having to play like, you know,
• 17:23
  multiple matches, both test and one day international.
• 17:27
  So it's a really good insight for for listeners to understand,
• 17:31
  you know, like, you know, the the struggles it can be.
• 17:34
  And it's great to hear like, you know, how you came out of it.
• 17:38
  And yeah, I think Steve wants to talk about 2016 for a little
• 17:43
  bit. Yeah, we obviously have to touch
• 17:44
  on that. But but before that actually one
• 17:46
  moment I actually want to touch on before.
• 17:48
  I know like you kind of made your name in one day cricket,
• 17:50
  Carlos, but like, I know you made your Test debut at the MCG.
• 17:54
  So like I went to the MCG for the first time a couple of years
• 17:57
  ago. I went to Australia and I think
• 17:59
  like the MCG for cricket, like, you know, Old Trafford for
• 18:02
  football, the Masters in golf, like the MCG is like probably
• 18:07
  the place, right? Right.
• 18:07
  So what a place to meet your debut, yeah?
• 18:09
  What? What is it like?
• 18:10
  Make like making your Test debut at the MCG.
• 18:13
  Like tell us. We all like our sports fans, we
• 18:16
  dream, right, of these moments to play for your club or your
• 18:19
  country. Like tell us.
• 18:20
  Like try and describe how it feels.
• 18:22
  I know you can't. You can never put it into Yeah,
• 18:24
  try and tell us. It was surreal to be honest
• 18:27
  because I was actually performing well in warm up
• 18:32
  games. We had torched Sri Lanka before
• 18:34
  that. I was doing quite well and
• 18:35
  what's not, so I expected, you know, going to Australia team
• 18:40
  wasn't doing so well. I want to go like I ready play
• 18:45
  the warm up game. I think I got two 40s and I
• 18:47
  still seemed like I take for the first game.
• 18:49
  But then Shannon Gabriel got injured in the first game and it
• 18:52
  was like and Jason Alder was captain and we spent a lot of
• 18:57
  time together off the field. So I was trying to pick his
• 19:00
  brain all the time. Am I in?
• 19:01
  Am I in, Am I in? Naturally, it should have been.
• 19:04
  It was the closest thing that like for like replacement when
• 19:07
  he told me that I was in, it was kind of like Boxing Day Test at
• 19:12
  the MCG, just one of them like religious things when it comes
• 19:17
  to cricket, like it's always in the calendar and not only even
• 19:22
  playing one, but you can make your debut.
• 19:25
  And then I got my cap from Courtney Walsh.
• 19:28
  It was like, yeah, you always talk about the journey and you
• 19:34
  love the journey. But as you mentioned with the
• 19:36
  Olympic gold medalist, I could only imagine when you walk up to
• 19:40
  the podium to get your gold medal, all these things that you
• 19:44
  would have thought that it would feel like, like getting my cap
• 19:50
  knowing that I ain't A-Team. It surpassed that 100 times
• 19:54
  over. It was it was a ridiculous
• 19:57
  feeling. And then on top of that came up
• 19:58
  to bat on a hat trick. So yeah.
• 20:03
  Big pressure, man. Big.
• 20:04
  Pressure bloody Australia. Well, yeah, that's incredible
• 20:09
  insight. And then, yeah, look, we'll
• 20:10
  touch on 2016. Look, 4 sixes against Ben Stokes
• 20:15
  to win the World Cup. I mean, like you couldn't write
• 20:19
  that just. Yeah, again, just and tell us
• 20:21
  about your mindset. Did you in that moment, did you
• 20:23
  adopt that calmness that you were talking about earlier or
• 20:27
  had you not developed that like? Yeah, I tell us what was going
• 20:30
  through your mind. Yes, the calmness adopt me to be
• 20:33
  honest, because I just felt calm or to nowhere.
• 20:36
  But you know a lot, a lot, a lot of that, right.
• 20:39
  So the team that we had as well, everyone knew the role and we
• 20:45
  had a really good, we had a really good pre tournament trip
• 20:49
  to Abu Dhabi, sorry to Dubai and we played a lot of intrasquad
• 20:55
  games, lots of tough net sessions and Bravo kind of took
• 21:01
  me under his wing. Well, it was probably a little
• 21:03
  bit annoying, but I was always talking to finishing the game
• 21:06
  because we bat a hand. My job was never going to be
• 21:09
  batting too many balls, but I always had to have big impact
• 21:13
  like a Russell, like a Brack ball, like a Polar and whatever,
• 21:16
  and then they ball in hand. I just wanted to be flexible
• 21:18
  enough to bowl in any face. So we did a lot of situations
• 21:24
  with Bravo bowling at me and finishing and being as
• 21:29
  consistent he is with his death bowling and me trying to get it
• 21:32
  away. And they've got really
• 21:34
  competitive, me and Ashley nervous against Bravo almost
• 21:37
  every single day. And we we would stop, we'd have
• 21:42
  a chat, look at the ball, you all ball where your head is, was
• 21:45
  your mindset why this shot? And it was really, really good
• 21:48
  communication. So I didn't expect to play in
• 21:52
  that tournament at all because it came in as a replacement for
• 21:55
  Polar. They think I can't remember a
• 21:57
  little Pollard, Ash and the rest of the replacement for Sooner,
• 21:59
  right. And yeah, it was like having
• 22:05
  drilled that over and over and over.
• 22:08
  By 10:00, you got to the tournament, you were just a
• 22:10
  really well oiled machine. And I guess Afghanistan, you
• 22:15
  understand? Yeah, I guess you understand I
• 22:17
  didn't finish the game. And then in the team, we think
• 22:20
  after we had some conversations, we went to team room, we had a
• 22:24
  drink and we were just talking about how I could have gone
• 22:27
  about it different from a tactical perspective.
• 22:30
  And in that moment, it was just like Marlon should have hit the
• 22:34
  ball and got a single and won us the game.
• 22:37
  That was not a discrete, but he missed it.
• 22:40
  And then it was like, yeah, just get the ball in the ear, get
• 22:43
  Marlin on strike because back then it could cross any balls in
• 22:46
  the air. Yeah, 16 became 2 became three
• 22:51
  became 4. But that was probably closest
• 22:54
  that not closest. I said I was in like the floor
• 22:57
  state that we talked about then. We're you allowing the instinct
• 23:01
  to take over? You're watching the ball and
• 23:03
  you're just reacting. You're trusting your instinct
• 23:06
  versus overthinking it obviously about too many times since.
• 23:11
  But yeah, that is the mindset that you want to be in in high
• 23:16
  level sport where you're allowing it in.
• 23:18
  Since that you have trained solar practise to take over in
• 23:22
  the pressure moment. Let me tell you, like me, my dad
• 23:27
  and Steve, we all watched that in our living room.
• 23:31
  Just unfortunately we were supporting England, but just
• 23:35
  this just astonishment, like just, you know, the the sixes,
• 23:41
  the hits and actually even Ian Bishop's line, like he's
• 23:46
  actually one of my favourite commentators.
• 23:47
  And when he nailed that line, I mean, what a line because it's
• 23:53
  it's given like this magic moment like that.
• 23:56
  You can look back in on time. So, you know, it's it's a great
• 24:01
  and achievement and it's wonderful that, you know, you
• 24:04
  could share like the experience of that.
• 24:07
  But we did have a couple of other interesting cricket
• 24:10
  questions that have come up during the summer.
• 24:13
  So we needed to get Carlos's opinion on a couple of these
• 24:17
  topics. So the the first one is a is a
• 24:21
  good old age debate Carlos, Lara or Sachin.
• 24:28
  Lara Yeah. Why?
• 24:32
  Or is it quick fire? No.
• 24:34
  No, go for it. We need the Y for sure.
• 24:37
  I think as a West Indian, Lara prove to young boys in the
• 24:42
  Caribbean that we can't take on the world and then that might be
• 24:45
  here for young Indian guys as well and that'll be the
• 24:48
  experience. But from my experience, Lara was
• 24:52
  one of the shining lights when it came to my generation to say
• 24:57
  that we can be world class. So not compete like conquer.
• 25:02
  And then when I looked at it from a West Indian lens,
• 25:05
  obviously, you know, I'll. Give you the neutral one in a
• 25:10
  second, but carry. On look, I had a middle order
• 25:14
  that was stacked and he was the best of a good bunch.
• 25:19
  Whereas I felt as though Lara would always come in at the
• 25:22
  score, being 10 for 2/20 for two, and I almost have to drag
• 25:26
  his team on his back out to the mire.
• 25:30
  And that could be, again, that could be a West Indian lens.
• 25:32
  But for me, the main reason was because as a young boy growing
• 25:35
  up, now a young black boy from the Caribbean can actually
• 25:40
  accompany world. Yeah, that's, that's awesome.
• 25:45
  I mean, the reason I asked that is because often when we go to
• 25:50
  Old Trafford, so we got a couple of, you know, season ticket
• 25:55
  holders of Indian percent. Shout out to coach Raj,
• 25:57
  obviously. Yeah, Coach Raj as well, and
• 26:01
  Ron, friend of the party, he's he's been on a couple of times.
• 26:03
  So like there's always discussions in the car and like
• 26:07
  that was one of the big ones that always came up and you
• 26:10
  know, like the neutral view. So like Sri Lankan English is.
• 26:14
  I went with Brian as well. And it was mainly for the reason
• 26:18
  of like, if I wanted someone to bat for me and get me 100, like
• 26:25
  Brian Lara was just the guy, you know, whether it was the free 75
• 26:28
  or the 400 against England, the innings that he, you know, did
• 26:33
  against Australia in like 99 in that.
• 26:35
  Series. Exactly right.
• 26:38
  It's like when that guy needed to get you 100 under the most
• 26:42
  extreme pressure. Not to say obviously Sachin
• 26:45
  didn't because you know, he had Billy a billion fans to please,
• 26:48
  but it was just different because like, like you said,
• 26:51
  Lara just carried the batting line up a lot in his career,
• 26:55
  whereas Sachin was a little bit fortunate, right?
• 26:58
  He had Dravid, Ganguly, Kohli later.
• 27:02
  So the burden was shared a little bit more.
• 27:04
  But yeah, I mean, it was just interesting to get your take on
• 27:07
  that. And the the big one of the
• 27:09
  summer that everyone's been discussing, Jasper Bumrah, is he
• 27:14
  the fast GOAT bowler or is that just premature?
• 27:18
  I see. The Is he the GOAT of fast
• 27:21
  bowling? Like like it's been discussed in
• 27:23
  the summer. Of all time is difficult because
• 27:30
  the errors before then have T20. So I think he would be more
• 27:35
  rated as of all time because he's so good in T20 as well.
• 27:41
  But we can't say that Mitchell Johnson wouldn't have been great
• 27:48
  in T20 or Glenn McGrath wouldn't have been great in T20.
• 27:51
  The different skill sets. But what you're talking about as
• 27:56
  we sit here now, which fastballer can conquer all three
• 28:00
  formats with a plump and be as effective in all three, has to
• 28:06
  be Jasper Boomer. Like he's as effective in Test
• 28:09
  cricket as he is ODA cricket as he is T20 cricket.
• 28:14
  There's not much negatives to be honest.
• 28:16
  Maybe it's injury record or somewhere with that action and
• 28:22
  the little amount of steps he takes to get to the crease to
• 28:25
  then put that strain on the body is no surprise that he probably
• 28:28
  is injured. And you're not supposed your
• 28:31
  body made the ball as fast as he does anyway.
• 28:33
  But with regards to who is the person that you can pick in all
• 28:37
  three formats and you can back them to win you the game as a
• 28:41
  fast bowler, hands down Jasper Boomer.
• 28:44
  So in that case, you probably say, yeah, probably in that
• 28:47
  conversation a strong contender for it.
• 28:50
  Yeah, I was going to say we need, it's almost like we need
• 28:53
  his career to finish and then we can judge it even better, right?
• 28:57
  Because we haven't touched on the 70s bowlers, the 80s like
• 29:01
  the great West Indians of the past.
• 29:03
  But we could be here forever discussing it, right?
• 29:06
  It's a pod probably that we need to do in the future, Carlos.
• 29:10
  Let's kick it off. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 29:15
  We're expanding, man. You know it.
• 29:18
  Cool. Well, yeah, we're gonna just
• 29:19
  wrap up on one topic, Carlos. And that's kind of just like, I
• 29:24
  guess young people and sport. Like I believe you have a
• 29:27
  daughter, is that right? Yes, yeah, Yeah.
• 29:29
  So you got. A little Eden Gardens as well.
• 29:33
  Eden. Magic story, Yeah.
• 29:37
  So, yeah, tell us about, you know, you mentioned it there
• 29:39
  actually, like Brian Lara kind of inspired you that you could
• 29:43
  take on the world. And I guess like, you know, you
• 29:45
  made it as a professional. But even kids playing amateur
• 29:47
  sports, right? Like, I'm assuming you're a big
• 29:50
  advocate of, you know, young people getting into sport, the
• 29:53
  benefits of sports, the things it teaches, teaches you.
• 29:56
  Is that something you'd advocate for?
• 29:58
  Like, you know, all young people to get into if they can?
• 30:01
  Yeah, 100% because, and we say at the unique level, not as
• 30:06
  much, no, but years ago the good sportsman that recently taught
• 30:09
  played multiple sports as well. And I mentioned me playing
• 30:15
  basketball at school. I remember that season that was
• 30:18
  probably only fickest I ever would because you're doing
• 30:21
  suicides and it's not working necessarily harder, but you're
• 30:26
  working differently. So when you play football, you
• 30:28
  work different muscles, you think differently.
• 30:32
  When you play basketball, there's a whole other set of
• 30:34
  muscles or whole other way of playing.
• 30:36
  Likewise cricket. But what I think it also helps
• 30:39
  with this problem solving. So you can problem solve the
• 30:43
  same way in football that you would basketball, that you would
• 30:45
  cricket. And when it comes to life,
• 30:48
  there's a lot of problem, a lot of problems to be solved.
• 30:52
  So when you play a sport, you learn to problem solve, you
• 30:56
  learn to work as a team, you learn to ride the highs and the
• 30:59
  lows. There's a lot that goes into
• 31:01
  playing sport beyond just hitting runs, bowling balls,
• 31:05
  taking wickets, scoring goals, etcetera.
• 31:07
  There's a lot about community as well.
• 31:09
  I think COVID that era really proved to us what community was.
• 31:14
  There are so many people that were locked in the house and
• 31:16
  almost going mad because they couldn't get out to do the final
• 31:21
  site scrimmage on Sunday. And funny enough, before COVID
• 31:24
  that there was science scrimmage, your girlfriends are
• 31:26
  probably saying, oh, you don't stay in your house.
• 31:28
  You go to work under the famous faith for me.
• 31:31
  And then during COVID, they'll be like, OK, actually we want
• 31:34
  you all to the home. Get out.
• 31:36
  Yeah. So yeah, I think COVID really
• 31:39
  showed us what community is. And sometimes you forget that
• 31:41
  sports builds a community as well.
• 31:44
  So yeah, I'm a big advocate for for sports and I tell you all in
• 31:49
  Barbados because becoming a professional is so close.
• 31:53
  If you play for Barbados, you're a professional, you'd be paid to
• 31:56
  play. You can not play for Barbados
• 31:58
  and go to England as a pro and play for 5-6 months in a year or
• 32:02
  come. But coming to England where
• 32:04
  there is so many people that love sport, that play sport, and
• 32:08
  then there's such a big divide between professional and mature,
• 32:11
  it really gave me perspective in how drastic it is between
• 32:18
  becoming pro and how difficult it is to become pro.
• 32:22
  So one of my good friends, Shabbat Soldier who runs speed
• 32:25
  camp, fastballing coach, he always talked to me about, you
• 32:31
  know, you were poor, you were poor, you were poor.
• 32:32
  And he was a soccer 11 player, but I don't think he played cup
• 32:36
  cricket. He never went on to play for
• 32:37
  England. So in his mind is like, turning
• 32:40
  poor was such a big thing, and maybe just like, yeah, you just
• 32:43
  play for Barbados. Yeah, you just play for West
• 32:45
  Indies. And then you understand how many
• 32:47
  people work so hard at the levels below just to turn pro
• 32:52
  and sometimes don't always make it.
• 32:54
  Then you kind of start to appreciate how important and
• 32:57
  mature sport is because there's a level there where so many
• 33:00
  people are working so hard for different reasons, some to
• 33:03
  become pro, some for the community, some for the love of
• 33:06
  the sport. You really got advert for it
• 33:08
  because the lifeblood of all the sports that we play and that we
• 33:11
  enjoy. Yeah, brilliant.
• 33:14
  Carlos, just literally before we end, you are in the UK for the
• 33:18
  100, right? And the 100, the final is going
• 33:22
  to be Sunday, right? It's a game on Saturday and
• 33:24
  Sunday, so yeah. How did it go in Germany?
• 33:27
  Saturday in the Mineta, so 2 versus 3 in the women and the
• 33:30
  men, and then Sunday in the finals.
• 33:33
  Yeah. How's it going the hundred in
• 33:34
  terms of the take up like you know in terms of that format
• 33:38
  would you say? Polar is a polarising
• 33:42
  conversation to be honest. Give us your quick your quick
• 33:46
  take before we wrap up. It Laird So what they wanted to
• 33:51
  do is done brought new audiences is also brought some money into
• 33:55
  the game. The the purists that say they
• 33:59
  should have done that for the blast.
• 34:00
  Their tack back was kind of exactly franchise 18 teams.
• 34:05
  So you had to create new teams and they made sense to then
• 34:08
  create a new format. I think it will go to T20
• 34:12
  sometime soon. Get especially the money from
• 34:15
  the Indian investors and whatnot.
• 34:19
  We. Spoke about it old traffic,
• 34:20
  didn't we? Yeah, but it has brought it has
• 34:22
  brought a new audience and if that we can now find a way to
• 34:26
  philtre that audience into the culture game and get young boys
• 34:31
  and girls playing cricket at counties, then it would have
• 34:34
  served it purpose along with financing culture cricket.
• 34:40
  But I understand what the purest are saying as well, because the
• 34:43
  Blast has never really gotten the marketing budget and spend
• 34:49
  that the 100 would have gotten the powerful show treatment of a
• 34:53
  block that type of thing. And I played the Blast and it
• 34:56
  absolutely not the Blast. So you somewhere in the
• 35:00
  alternate universe, you wish that both could have happened.
• 35:02
  There'd been less teams in the Blast.
• 35:04
  Potentially that money could have been spent marketing the
• 35:09
  Blast and making it better. But then you'd have to sell 49%
• 35:14
  of Birmingham or Workshop comes. Great club.
• 35:18
  Would the owners want that? No.
• 35:20
  So then how would you get money in the game?
• 35:22
  It's a big long layered conversation, but don't think
• 35:25
  anybody would admit that they're wrong with your opinion.
• 35:30
  But there are few opinions on it that you can agree to disagree
• 35:33
  when I can see both sides destroy.
• 35:36
  Yeah, like I said, we're going to have to do a cricket special
• 35:40
  and delve into franchise cricket, international cricket.
• 35:44
  But I just wanted to touch because you've obviously
• 35:46
  mentioned it in terms of like your career.
• 35:49
  So you've had the playing career, you're doing commentary,
• 35:52
  you've done it for a few years, both radio and TV, enjoying it.
• 35:56
  Like how do you see that, you know, like progressing?
• 35:59
  Yeah, I'm enjoying it. And they actually started this
• 36:02
  place playing a little bit more. Yeah, a little bit hard on the
• 36:04
  body. I mean, not being able to put
• 36:06
  the time and preparation that I know I need to.
• 36:09
  But I have enjoyed commentary because it's actually been a
• 36:12
  good challenge. So it started during COVID, was
• 36:16
  here in England. And yes, I remember actually.
• 36:19
  Yeah, the Corbridge series came wrestling, this came over, my
• 36:22
  agent called me that you're interested in doing commentary
• 36:25
  and I was like no commentary is just ex players who shit or
• 36:29
  colour players type of thing. And he was like now you're going
• 36:32
  to be here, you can get playing. There's literally nothing else
• 36:34
  happening. Let's do a couple portrait
• 36:37
  classes and they can put you forth to the BBC.
• 36:41
  So is Eric Paul did one or two little things and then remember
• 36:45
  doing a couple of three hour sessions with gals Cavill and
• 36:49
  just like Jesus can't talk when you border running in you gotta
• 36:53
  do this you gotta do that. They're gonna lead commentator
• 36:56
  colour commentator lead talks about what happened.
• 36:58
  The colour says why? It's like what?
• 37:01
  So that it was absolutely a challenge on a ring.
• 37:05
  Production in your ear on TV. When I started, when I started,
• 37:08
  it wasn't a, it was like turned out.
• 37:11
  No, obviously. What's this?
• 37:14
  Noise and more season. Yeah, she listened to what?
• 37:17
  The producer and the director staying in your ears and trying
• 37:20
  to talk now. I've really enjoyed it, really
• 37:23
  loved it. I've also been fortunate to work
• 37:26
  with the BBC. They really helped usher me,
• 37:29
  enjoyed our COVID series and they've always been good to me.
• 37:32
  Every single Saints when I've been available.
• 37:35
  And then working with people like Bish.
• 37:38
  I've always loved Bish, not because I remember the name, but
• 37:40
  I remember when I was playing, it'd be a lot of negativity
• 37:43
  around where I see this cricket. Bish is always the one
• 37:45
  commentator who come down and have a conversation with you.
• 37:48
  And if you do crap on air like you do crap like I don't expect
• 37:52
  if I play a bad shot, you'd say it was a good shot.
• 37:54
  But he'd always add contacts, add nuance and he'll come to you
• 37:58
  and ask, you know, why, why they shot, why they shot.
• 38:00
  I remember 1 and he always just he's a student of the game.
• 38:04
  So one time, I think it'd been Joey COVID, he sent me a
• 38:07
  message. Hi CDI.
• 38:09
  Think you wanted better bowlers of the slow ball.
• 38:12
  Just want to get into your brain a little bit as to, you know,
• 38:15
  why you would ball it when you ball it, who you ball it to.
• 38:18
  And I kid you not, I was walking around the flat for a ball close
• 38:23
  to an hour, recording his voice. No, and stopping it because it
• 38:28
  had to be perfect for Ian Bishop and now be able to work with
• 38:33
  him, work alongside him. I kind of learn from him as
• 38:36
  well. So now the college journey has
• 38:38
  been one that I've enjoyed And hopefully it could be a long
• 38:42
  career and and I may not ever get to give someone a remember
• 38:47
  the name tight line, but I hope that we'll.
• 38:51
  Get a new line for. You yeah, yeah, currently clean
• 38:54
  and, you know, celebrity goes that only feel.
• 38:58
  Yeah, long may it continue. Pass on the mantle, right on to
• 39:01
  the next generation. So yeah, we'll wrap it there.
• 39:04
  Carlos, we can't thank you enough for your time.
• 39:07
  Carlos, I think you're an inspiration to like sports fans
• 39:10
  and not even sports fans. I think this pod really, you've
• 39:13
  shown the layers to sports and even talking about your
• 39:16
  struggles I think will help a lot of people.
• 39:19
  So yeah, really appreciate your time, Carlos.
• 39:21
  I'm sure we'll see you at an away ground.
• 39:23
  Manchester United are playing at or Old Trafford soon, right?
• 39:26
  You're going to be there. Back in the toys as always.
• 39:33
  Good man, definitely. Hopefully, Reuben, Hopefully
• 39:36
  Reuben gets some results because he needs them, right?
• 39:39
  We all need the parking to help. Exactly.
• 39:45
  Thanks for tuning into this episode, and we'll catch you on
• 39:47
  the next one.