Shining the Light.
Dr. Amreena Mariadassou, Captain of the newly formed Sheffield Super Queens, talks us through the rise of the Sheffield Super Queens - from spectators to stalwarts.
Cricket has played a significant role in our lives since childhood as we have grown up watching all formats of the game on television. But as women of colour, we had very few avenues to play the sport in our adulthood. It was always the boys who formed teams and played the sport. After moving to England, a lot of Tamil families started to get actively involved with county cricket. Most of our better halves and kids play in the Yorkshire & Derbyshire Cricket League. We spent many a summer weekends cheering for our favourite players and supporting them off the field.
When the YCB informed us of the women's softball team, initially, we were slightly sceptical on the number of sign ups, but soon, we formed a small working group of 3-4 members and canvassed within our friends and families to form a team. We received a lot of support from the YCB in terms of initial planning, and equipment/kit hire/purchase etc., and they also explained the format of the game to us.
Now we have a team with 17 registered women players. Our team consists of doctors, engineers, homemakers, chefs, teachers, full-time students and busy mums amongst us. Our captain Dr. Amreena Mariadassou encourages all players to break out of their comfort zones and try new things.
After engaging with our team and explaining how this format works, most of the players were very impressed and happy to play for the team. Women who were hesitant to sign up soon became enthusiastic to play a friendly match and became keen learners. At our first friendly match we felt ecstatic and absolutely enjoyed playing the game as our opponents, the Rockingham Rubies were a great team and very friendly. When we played our second friendly match with Higham CC, we learnt to communicate better as a team and scored 242 runs in total.
Amidst this lockdown, with so much uncertainty, we are thrilled we have cricket to look forward to every weekend. We feel sport has great potential to unite, uplift and empower people and in our own little way we are trying to bring out the best in each of our players. You can follow our team’s journey at https://sheffieldsuperkings.play-cricket.com/Teams/282837.
Blog by Dean Smith
d.smith@yorkshirecb.com
Please contact Dean with your stories!