The Welsh Fire cricket team is in a unique position of being a club team representing a nation. There are very few examples of this anywhere in the world, and means players from Australia, England and elsewhere are representing Wales at the Hundred. They say they’re learning Welsh words, exploring their own links to Wales and engaging in the culture wherever they can.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Yeah, I think it's brilliant and that's something we're trying to really build in our team culture.
00:05 Like yes, not many of us are Welsh, not many have got that much connection to Wales, but
00:09 actually that's part of the uniqueness of this team.
00:12 There's no other team in the 100 that can represent our country as a whole.
00:16 My fiancé served in the Royal Welsh Regiment, not Welsh either, but he absolutely loves
00:22 the Welsh culture and he's trying to teach me and my teammates all about it and really
00:26 get stuck into that.
00:27 Like last night we had a chat with Welsh international sports people trying to vet in what it is
00:33 to represent Wales.
00:36 And I think all these little things are just helping to show social interaction with the
00:39 girls and I think they've been loving each other's company and I think that's been our
00:43 main focus as I've said before.
00:45 And hopefully when we hit the ground, we hit the ground running on Wednesday.
00:48 We've taken on the word 'foil', which I'm trying to kind of...
00:52 Did I say it right?
00:54 We kind of take that as the team and use that value and that word that the Welsh really
00:59 kind of hold dear.
01:01 So yeah, we certainly are desperate to really kind of connect with the Welsh culture.
01:07 I'm trying to learn some Welsh language, it's not going very well.
01:10 I'll say 'diolch' at the end.
01:13 Really looking forward to it.
01:14 We had a bit of a team meeting last night and that was sort of centred around sport
01:19 in Wales and what it means to people.
01:21 We really want to try and connect with the people in Wales and obviously the biggest
01:28 thing we can do is probably to play good cricket.
01:30 But yeah, how we go about things and the brand that we want to play is important as well.
01:34 I can't speak for them, I'm not Welsh myself, but I mean since coming to Welsh Fire we've
01:39 gone on two holidays in North Wales.
01:41 We were in a shepherd's hut up on a farm last week and absolutely loved it.
01:46 My dog's Welsh, born in Carmarthen.
01:48 So yeah, for me I feel like I'm trying to really immerse myself in it, absolutely love
01:52 it.
01:53 I think every time someone asks me I say I'm an adopted Welshman now, I've been here long
01:57 enough to qualify I think.
01:58 So yeah, it's nice to be playing in front of a home crowd at my home stadium.
02:02 It's somewhere I really like playing my cricket and I've had relative success with Morgan
02:07 and I, like I said, I love playing here.
02:08 So really looking forward to Wednesday and the rest of the month.
02:12 Really excited we've got a team social down at the Millennium Stadium watching Wales
02:16 take on South Africa so we'll certainly be cheering on Wales that day.
02:20 So yeah, I think we're really trying to immerse ourselves in Welsh culture and I think potentially
02:24 cricket is something that's maybe been left behind a little bit in Wales over the last
02:28 kind of few years and hopefully if things kind of go well with Welsh Fire we can change
02:33 that around a bit.
02:34 I guess it's just the pride and everything associated with it and I think we've got a
02:37 unique point here obviously.
02:39 We're probably the only franchise that's kind of linked to a country and I guess that national
02:43 pride and everything and what it is like to be Welsh.
02:47 For me that kind of also links in to professionalism.
02:49 I think it's something when you put a shirt on there's a pride associated with that shirt
02:52 and a responsibility and hopefully the girls get what it feels like to be Welsh.
02:57 I mean obviously Glamorgan do it and everything like that.
03:00 It's just a great place to be when you represent something.
03:03 (laughter)