Cricket must get on the front foot in helping women and girls to feel accepted

The Guardian

2 days ago

Nearly a quarter of a century has passed since myself and Ebony Rainford-Brent made our England cricket debuts. It was awesome for us to win World Cups together as the first two female internationals from ethnically diverse backgrounds. Since then there have been only four others, two with an Indian heritage. When you think of the interest shown in the game by the South Asian community, it is a staggering number.
In 2022 I founded a charity, Take Her Lead, in honour of my mum, with the aim to increase the number of women and girls playing and staying in the game, and advance equity and diversity in cricket. We do this through connecting young players from under‑represented groups to aspirational role models through life-skills workshops, to build the mental and social skills required to stay in the sport (girls are 20% more likely to drop out of sport than boys). We also support women who work or volunteer in cricket and sports broadcasting, and fund research.
While there is increased visibility and investment in the women's game, there is still a lot to be done at grassroots and community level. When Take Her Lead conducted a survey of 1,000 women and girls in 2022, we found that the majority didn't feel they belonged in the sport. Our mission is to make sure every woman and girl has the best possible experience of cricket whenever and however they are involved.
One of our projects will be to give girls from South Asian backgrounds the support they need to stay in the sport. We have recently set up an advisory panel of current and former international and domestic cricketers, and experts in community and development, and the National Asian Cricket Council, and will be working with the South Asian Cricket Academy (Saca) to support 10 professional players.
In the past few years I've reflected on my own personal journey, and asked myself why I've been one of the few from my background. At my first England Under-15s training camp, at 12, my first experience was someone joking about my spots. While being judged on your appearance is common for young people, its impact can be felt more when you look and feel different. For the rest of the weekend I segregated myself from everyone else and ended up getting told off by my coach. I was also very unfit and struggled to keep up. When the next training weekend came round, I told Mum I didn't want to go.
Now, South Asian families are starting to realise cricket can be a viable career option and encouraging their daughters a lot more, but 25 years ago those attitudes were very different so I was grateful to my parents, who encouraged me to keep going. Mum gave me the advice and strength to go back and do the talking with my cricket. I also forced myself to get better at running: in the evenings, after school, Dad would drop me off a certain distance from home and I would have to run back with him following me in the car. I eventually got to the standards I needed! Asian parents at that time were rarely so supportive of young girls who let sport take focus away from their studies, more so than boys, but with the help of mine I could do both.
When I first played for England the media celebrated the fact I was the first woman of Indian heritage to make the team. At the time I didn't want the added attention but I soon realised how important representation is. I also became more conscious of how people viewed British South Asian cricketers, both male and female – I think there was a feeling we were bad at fielding, lacked fitness and weren't as resilient, so I tried so hard to prove we weren't like that and I never wanted to be dropped for those reasons. It's fair to say, with more visibility of South Asian female role models around the world, that tag has shifted.
In the England dressing room I didn't talk about my culture too much. Not because I didn't feel like I could, I just wanted to keep those parts of my life separate. In 2002, the year after my debut, I won the BBC Asian Sports Personality of the Year award, and the whole team came to the ceremony to support me. That really helped me feel part of the set-up.
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I went on to have a decade-long international career, but so many other South Asian girls have left the game or not taken it up at all. Earlier this year Hina Shafi, a PhD researcher at Birmingham City University, joint‑funded by Take Her Lead, the England and Wales Cricket Board, Saca and the Ace Programme, published a study highlighting the lack of representation of diverse backgrounds on the ECB's talent pathway. She found that while South Asian women and girls make up 11.6% of participants at youth level, that drops to only 3.3% of the country's professional female cricketers. Two of those 150 professionals are black.
Of all parts of British society, South Asian women and girls are the least likely to take part in recommended levels of physical activity. It is not just about fitness, there are also issues with nutrition – to support me, Mum had to completely change the way she cooked at home. Period dignity historically for South Asian girls was also not talked about, and I relied on friends and teammates. Coaches also need an understanding that if a player prioritises their studies or a family event, it doesn't mean they are not committed. I said no to an Ashes tour because of my A-levels! Thankfully it didn't set me too far back in the pecking order.
It is also important not to clump South Asian communities into one big group: the challenges for a Muslim girl might be different to one from the Indian Hindu community, and even within that group there'll be lots of different cultures. I picked up a quote from the former Australian international footballer Moya Dodd: 'Boys need to be competitive to feel accepted, but girls need to feel accepted to be competitive.' That acceptance is exactly what we are trying to achieve.