{"id":17211,"date":"2023-03-04T15:25:20","date_gmt":"2023-03-04T15:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/04\/how-mentoring-can-make-a-difference-in-rapidly-changing-world-of-womens-cricket-andy-bull\/"},"modified":"2023-03-04T15:25:20","modified_gmt":"2023-03-04T15:25:20","slug":"how-mentoring-can-make-a-difference-in-rapidly-changing-world-of-womens-cricket-andy-bull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/04\/how-mentoring-can-make-a-difference-in-rapidly-changing-world-of-womens-cricket-andy-bull\/","title":{"rendered":"How mentoring can make a difference in rapidly changing world of women\u2019s cricket | Andy Bull"},"content":{"rendered":"

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C<\/span><\/span>hanging rooms can be lonely places. When Isa Guha started playing cricket she was the only girl in an all-boys team and when she was only a little older, the only girl in an all-women\u2019s one. A lot of the women she played with and against in her 10 years of international cricket had similar stories, so do a lot of the women she watches and talks about now, a decade later, in her second career as a presenter and commentator.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBeing the only girl in a team, that\u2019s still quite common,\u201d Guha says. \u201cIt probably helped my cricket, because I was spending so much time out of my comfort zone, but it still came with the same feelings of isolation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Last year, Guha launched a non-profit mentoring organisation, Take Her Lead<\/a>, working in women\u2019s cricket. Before the launch, they commissioned a survey of 300 young female cricketers about their experiences. \u201cI know we all feel we have a pretty good idea of what\u2019s going on, but there\u2019s nothing like speaking to people who are coming into the game,\u201d Guha says, \u201cand we were shocked that experiences they were talking about were the same experiences our mentors had had when they were growing up. It made me realise the sport hasn\u2019t moved forward as much as we think it has.\u201d<\/p>\n

They told stories about being uncomfortable wearing whites, because of their periods, but feeling unable to talk to any of their teammates and coaches about it. They spoke, too, about the sense they needed to be twice as good as the boys they were playing with, to prove they deserved their place, and the sense of isolation, of having no one to talk to about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were times when I was 12 or 13 when I wanted to quit the game because I felt isolated,\u201d Guha says. In her case, that loneliness wasn\u2019t exacerbated because there were so few British Asian girls playing the game but she can understand how that may be the case for others.<\/p>\n

Guha was the first woman with a British South Asian background to play for England and 12 years after her retirement she is still one of only two \u2013 the other being Sonia Odedra \u2013 to have played for England.<\/p>\n

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<\/svg><\/span>Isa Guha in action for England in 2011.<\/span> Photograph: Reuters\/Alamy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe figure we keep hearing is 30% of the playing population in England is from a South Asian background, but you have to separate men\u2019s and women\u2019s cricket,\u201d she says. The research done by Take Her Lead is designed to help fix that. \u201cThe figure is much smaller on the women\u2019s side,\u201d she says, and the upshot is that \u201cfive players from minority backgrounds have played for England women, so you have to ask \u2018Why?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Guha has been doing a lot of thinking about that. \u201cIn the last few years I\u2019ve been doing a lot of reflecting on why I was able to succeed when there was such a lack of representation at the England level,\u201d she says. \u201cAsking myself why I was able to get through the system and I realised it was because of the support I had, especially from my mother. It wasn\u2019t just her, but she gave me the confidence and the belief to be able to do what I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Take Her Lead is, in part, a tribute to her mother, Roma, who died in 2019, and an effort to provide the same sort of support she gave her children to girls who don\u2019t have it in their own lives already. Their first initiative, Got Your Back<\/a>, launched on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard those young girls\u2019 experiences and thought: \u2018Yeah, I definitely felt that when I was younger, but was I supported to come through it?\u2019 Well, maybe those girls aren\u2019t getting that and that\u2019s why we\u2019re losing them from the game. Got Your Back is meant to raise awareness and understanding about what everyone in the game can do to be better at encouraging women and girls to get involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond that, Take Her Lead are planning bigger projects, in collaboration with Ebony Rainford-Brent\u2019s ACE programme, The Lord\u2019s Taverners and the MCC Foundation.<\/p>\n

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