Joshua James re­turned to To­ba­go as a Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) cham­pi­on and the toast of Whim.

In on­ly his fourth CPL sea­son, James took 12 wick­ets over 18 overs in eight in­nings for the An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Fal­cons with best fig­ures of 3 for 18. He was joint sec­ond top wick­et-tak­er for the new­ly mint­ed CPL cham­pi­ons.

It fol­lowed his in­volve­ment in a suc­cess­ful run to the 2026 Crick­et West In­dies (CWI) Cham­pi­onship with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Force, break­ing a 20-year drought in the four-day tour­na­ment at long last.

The 25-year-old was fet­ed by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) and a le­gion of ador­ing fans on his re­turn to the is­land, none proud­er than his first-ever sup­port­er, his moth­er, Suzette McLetchie.

McLetchie re­called watch­ing a young Joshua play­ing crick­et in the road out­side their Back Hill res­i­dence and speak­ing life in­to his fu­ture.

"Right by my gap, (he was) play­ing crick­et with these younger guys with a chub­by bot­tle," McLetchie rem­i­nisced. "I told him, 'Joshua, you're go­ing to make our coun­try proud. One day, one day,' and so it is; we are proud, we are proud!"

In recog­ni­tion of his achieve­ments this crick­et sea­son, the THA pre­sent­ed James with a cheque for $50,000, but McLetchie says the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed CPL sea­son pro­vid­ed her and her fam­i­ly with much more; un­bri­dled joy at sev­er­al points through­out.

"The kind of joy Joshua brings to my heart, oh God, it's over­whelm­ing," his moth­er beamed "And trust me, it wasn't easy, but we make it. All the sib­lings, which is nine of them, they were proud to see their broth­er play­ing there.

"Tears come out of my eyes; tears was over­flow­ing, but it was a joy in my heart."

James, a for­mer West In­dies Un­der-19 play­er and part of the 2020 U-19 World Cup squad, rep­re­sent­ed the West In­dies Acad­e­my and was first called to the Red Force's Su­per 50 team in 2024.

Af­ter mak­ing his CPL de­but in the 2021 sea­son with the Ja­maica Tallawahs, James played a bit part in the team's 2022 tri­umph but had to wait for his chance to take a more ac­tive role in his team's suc­cess, this time with the Fal­cons.

"This CPL meant a lot to me," James said. "It was re­al­ly an ho­n­our to per­form on the biggest stage of them all, with the whole of To­ba­go to be on my back. I know that I had to go out there and put my best foot for­ward.

"Ob­vi­ous­ly, af­ter five years of wait­ing, I think I re­al­ly put in the work, and when I got the op­por­tu­ni­ty, I made good use of it."

The re­sult­ing per­for­mances prompt­ed an is­land to throw its sup­port be­hind the An­tigua and Bar­bu­da fran­chise.

"To­ba­go, I know they will sup­port their own, al­though the coun­try is Trinidad and To­ba­go. When you have some­body from right in the vil­lage, so the most love and sup­port goes to the fel­low vil­lage mate. Every­where I go, every­body just keeps call­ing me the gold­en arm," he mused.

He hopes that his per­for­mances will al­so earn him more con­fi­dence from the game's ad­min­is­tra­tors and, with it, more re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

"A lot of big peo­ple have been talk­ing about me, so I hope that in time to come I will con­tin­ue the good work and keep my name in those con­ver­sa­tions."

James cred­it­ed West In­dies leg­end Curt­ly Am­brose with sharp­en­ing his fo­cus.

"Mr Am­brose is a re­al­ly good man, a good man to talk to when things are go­ing good and when things are go­ing not so good.

"He al­ways said, 'Big James, you have to put in the work.' In train­ing, (he em­pha­sised) al­ways putting down your cones so you hit your tar­get. He said the best bowlers in the world al­ways come from do­ing plen­ty of tar­get prac­tice."

His moth­er added that Joshua's suc­cess is al­so due to her ef­forts to in­stil the right val­ues in­to her brood.

"I try my best as a sin­gle mom to show them dis­ci­pline, that they get dis­ci­pline, and you could see Joshua is a dis­ci­plined child. I sent them to (crick­et coach) Bri­an Browne, and dis­ci­pline is one thing with him; if you have no dis­ci­pline, you can­not be there, and Joshua nev­er did any­thing wrong in crick­et," she tes­ti­fied.

As the team made their his­toric climb to the ti­tle, even­tu­al­ly beat­ing the Ja­maica Kings­men by eight wick­ets in the fi­nal, McLetchie made sure her son was calm as his goal drew clos­er.

"I said, God's tim­ing,'" she said, turn­ing to her son "You re­mem­ber I used to tell you, I al­ways tell him, I say, Joshua, God's tim­ing is the best tim­ing, and this is yours."

The prayers of a moth­er, a vil­lage lift­ing him up, and a leg­end to show him the path, Joshua James is the em­bod­i­ment of re­silience and des­tiny made man­i­fest.