Exclusive | 'It's loyalty, it's a Caribbean thing': Rovman Powell on why West Indies stars stick to their IPL franchises

Rovman Powell grew up in Bannister, a tiny Jamaican community where dreams are bigger than opportunities.

Today, the swashbuckling batter stands as one of the most recognisable faces in world T20 cricket. He has been retained by the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) ahead of the 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) auction, and he has earned his stripes in the global T20 leagues as a six-hitting machine.



Powell's journey, however, is more than sixes and league contracts. It’s a tale of sacrifice, mentors who nudged him towards destiny, and a culture where loyalty is currency.

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In this candid conversation with the TimesofIndia.com, the Dubai Capitals player touches upon his journey, money, identity, power-hitting, and the values that made him.

Excerpts:

Your journey is fascinating. How much has playing in leagues like the IPL and ILT20 changed your career?

It has changed life dramatically. Obviously, the pride and joy of playing for your country, which for me is the West Indies, is still there. But playing in the leagues has taught me a lot. It has helped from a financial standpoint, making things a little bit better for yourself and your family. We as Caribbean athletes, we as Caribbean cricketers, cannot ignore how important the financial rewards are. You try to balance everything. But you also build relationships — lifelong friendships with people across different franchises. A lot of those relationships, a lot of those friendships, will last forever.

When you look back to when you started as a boy just playing cricket for the love of the game. Do you realise you’ve become such a big phenomenon?

I think when I look back on my journey, it gives me a proud feeling, but there’s still more to do, still more to achieve. I started out as a little boy from a small community in Jamaica called Bannister, and it was through hard work that I got this far. I always believed that I had the talent to play cricket, and talent needs nurturing. For me, hard work and discipline have been instrumental in my pathway, in reaching this far. I keep trying to maintain that discipline and hard work. Once you take care of things on the field, a lot of things off the field take care of themselves. I’m fortunate enough to be in a position where I can offer my mother, my sister, my partner, and my close family a better life.

Who was your role model growing up? Who really helped you become a cricketer?

Where I’m from, cricket is a loved sport. When I was in primary school, I had coaches and teachers who tried to help. Mr Nicholas Dhillon was one of those teachers. Mr Carlton Solan was my cricket coach at the time. I was trying to do both sports -- athletics and cricket -- and when I went to athletics training, Coach Solan told me not to come back for training. He said my talent was in cricket. It felt harsh at the time -- I was about 12 -- but it was the right decision. My talent was in cricket, and I was basically wasting time with athletics.

Let’s talk about the sixes you hit. They look effortless. Is it natural power, or is there a technique you work on?

It’s a mixture of both. That’s why someone can go to the gym, lift all the weights, and still not go out and hit sixes. It’s a mixture of having that natural Caribbean power and also fine-tuning the little skills -- looking at the ball for long, getting into a nice, strong, firm base, keeping your head down when hitting the ball. These are little principles that never change when you’re hitting sixes.

Do you play golf to work on your bat swing?

There’s a natural flair. Not many Caribbean guys grow up playing golf because golf is an expensive sport. Only an elite class of people in the Caribbean would play golf. It’s different from England, where everyone grows up playing the sport. In the Caribbean, it’s not something everyone picks up, especially a young, poor boy. So a lot of it is innate skills—skills you are born with. Many Caribbean players have a natural golf swing without ever playing golf.

Not many Caribbean guys grow up playing golf because golf is an expensive sport. Only an elite class of people in the Caribbean would play golf. It’s different from England, where everyone grows up playing the sport.

How is ILT20 different from CPL and IPL?

ILT20 comes with its own fair share of things. With so much international quality, your quality as a player improves. It’s the only league in the world that plays eight or nine international players, which shows you the kind of quality that is always on the park. And when you look at the UAE players, there’s a lot of talent coming through. When I first came here three or four years ago—this being the fourth season—there weren’t so many good cricketers from the UAE. Now, when you look at every UAE player, you’re wondering how cricket has developed so fast. Credit has to be given to the ILT20 for having a vision and coming up with plans and concepts to develop UAE cricket. It has been very good.

Andre Russell said he won’t play for another franchise in the IPL. A few years back, Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo said the same. Chris Gayle is a legend at RCB. What is it about loyalty among Caribbean players?

I think it’s something big in the Caribbean. Loyalty is a very big thing. Having people you can trust is very important. I don’t know if it’s as important in other parts of the world, but in the Caribbean, it is essential. Once you leave the Caribbean, you leave with those traits. Those guys have left good impressions where they played for their franchises for five, six, seven, eight, ten years. It becomes natural for them to trust the franchise, and for the franchise to trust them. And you have to understand -- those guys have been excellent performers. All those players you mentioned have performed extremely well for their franchises. So it’s not difficult for franchises to identify them and support them. Those players welcome that support. You see guys ending their IPL careers because they don’t want to play for any other team or against their own team. That is love. That is trust. That is built over time.

Will we see more instances of six sixes in an over going forward?

Yes, definitely. You will start seeing it more often because players are more aggressive now. They’re looking to take down bowlers.


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