It’s 4pm, and the 19-year-old Ekil Latifi has been at the indoor cricket centre at Lord’s for eight hours. Nor is she planning on going home any time soon. Having finished her day job with the MCC schools and community team – she arrived two hours early to get in some net practice – she’s now heading for a training session at the gym, which is, to her, one of the perks. How is she not exhausted already? She shrugs. “It’s just my passion.”
Growing up in Afghanistan, Latifi was always sporty. She wanted to be a professional footballer until her early teens, when an injury caused her mother to announce there would be no more kickabouts. She enjoyed volleyball and basketball, but her lack of height held her back. In 2015 she watched her compatriots play Scotland at the men’s Cricket World Cup. There was a bat in her house, and she picked it up with a new purpose.
