THE Scotland football team is soaring ... but not as we used to know it.
Women’s football has seen immense growth over the past few years and support is surging, with fans – including First Minster Nicola Sturgeon – firmly believing that the women’s game should receive the same investment as the men’s game does.
On Friday, the team travelled to Poland for their World Cup qualifier match against Ukraine, match result in here and proving the skill and determination they have to go all the way. The appetite for women’s football is certainly on the rise – but can more be done to boost women’s involvement in other sports, too?
This has been the aim of women and girls’ development manager for Cricket Scotland, Rosy Ryan, who has been working to garner the same attention for the sport as the men’s game.
With this aim, in 2018, Ryan came up with CricHIIT as a way to attract women of all abilities to the sport in a fun environment.
“When I got into cricket, I remember thinking it was slow, it took ages to do, it’s just people who wear whites,” Ryan says. “I just didn’t see myself having a love for it instantly. So how could I spin all those things around and create something for women, completely change perceptions and get a new demographic involved in the sport?”
CricHIIT was launched across the country, and involves soft-ball cricket skills paired with high-intensity interval training activities. Female activators lead the sessions at participating clubs and promote the scheme in their local area, ensuring it reaches women not already involved in cricket. It also allows women and girls to step up and take on a leadership role within their club by training as an activator.
CricHIIT has grown to reach all areas of Scotland, as well as receiving interest from sporting organisations across the world. For teams like
Meigle Cricket Club in Perthshire, women who had never played cricket before turned up to try something new, and before long they had established a beginners’ team. This allows them to play friendly matches against other starter teams from neighbouring clubs, creating a strong female community in cricket. The number of attendees has remained high in the two months Meigle has run CricHIIT. For many of the women, it’s their only chance of physical activity per week.
“If people want to go to the gym or if people want to do something while they drop their child off at cricket, then they can be part of that club,” Ryan explains. “There’s something for women that are new to the game.”
Ryan, alongside Cricket Scotland, has put in the work in the past five years to ensure that women are given as much opportunity as possible. They introduced The Wee Bash in 2017 as a fun and female-focused indoor tournament for universities, clubs and schools to enter, with women of all abilities participating in it. The Wee Bash takes place at different venues across Scotland and allows women’s cricket to continue over the winter season, when the sport usually isn’t played.
“What CricHIIT and The Wee Bash have done is started off this pathway with people going from The Wee Bash, then thinking they could do a little bit of hardball cricket, then going from hardball to having a team, to then going into the women’s premier league,” Ryan explains. “I guess that CricHIIT can almost be like a catalyst for some clubs to get more people involved further and further up, and that’s the most amazing thing that’s come out of it.”
The start-up funding for CricHIIT came from the International Cricket Council (ICC), but the aim is for CricHIIT to create its own income.
“We’ve got a website that’s hopefully going to generate income for us. Realistically that is what we want CricHIIT to do,” Ryan says. “Primarily, CricHIIT can be used for clubs to go out and try and get different funding.”
During Scottish Women And Girls In Sport Week last year, the East of Scotland Cricket Association (ESCA) gave clubs the opportunity to claim up to £1000 per season. This was to go towards coaching courses and equipment that is needed to get women’s cricket off the ground at many clubs.
Annette Aitken-Drummond is a former Scottish international player and current leader of women’s and girls’ cricket for ESCA.
SHE said: “We’ve hosted a women’s cricket festival, skills workshop and opened up a women’s cricket grant for clubs in the east. All of these initiatives together have seen participation increase. Simple things like funding to help purchase women’s-sized cricket balls and club kit that anyone can use will reduce the number of barriers to getting involved in the sport.”
Cricket Scotland is committed to becoming the most diverse sport in the country, and with the measures being taken for women’s development, this looks possible. Cricket has been shrouded in the stereotype of being a boys’ club, but this misconception could not be further from the truth about the sport today.
The Hundred is a professional tournament located in major cities across England and Wales. Currently, there are more Scottish women than men playing in it, including Scotland internationalist Abtaha Maqsood.
Ryan goes on: “We’ve got Abtaha, an amazing role model, especially for young Muslim women. It’s so exciting – it really shows how much the game is growing here.”
Thanks to such a proactive approach, the future is looking bright for women’s cricket as it moves into a fast, young and diverse game focusing on athleticism and inclusion. Alongside promoting women in the sport, Cricket Scotland also runs Open To All Disability Centres and a campaign to tackle racism, Call It Out. These are examples of why Cricket Scotland has two feet placed firmly into the modern era of sport.
Aitken-Drummond reflects on her experience growing up in cricket with optimism and excitement for the future.
She says: “When I was young, I was regularly the only girl playing in men’s teams. In fact, I can’t really remember ever playing against another girl in my club games. To now see so many women and girls playing cricket just shows how far we’ve come.”
