#Together We Grow

 

Sometimes late in 2021, Helmien Rambaldo, a player and coach from Netherlands sent out a tweet to initiate a survey to figure out a need for a female coaching network in Europe. Both I and Bijeyata filled that survey and played our part in the starting of the network which was established in August 2022. For this cohort of female coaches in Eurpore, Esther De Lange, ICC Europe development officer organized five webinars between November 2022 and March 2023 for this group. Through these webinars and the group of coaches, I learnt a lot about coaching including several online resources about women cricket and one of them was a Facebook group called as Talkin' About Women's Cricket. On that group I came across Jenny Thompson and Her world cricket tour. Jenny Thompson is a former assistant editor of ESPNCricinfo and she was planning a 50-plus country tour to play and write about women's cricket. In March, I sent her a one-line message “I would like to host you in Oslo”. She responded saying that she can come between 13-16 June. Luckily by then we had locked the dates for the T10 tournament in Oslo so I suggested her to visit us over the weekend of 17-18 June. She worked out her multi country travel plan and arrive in Oslo on 16^th June and just popped by Stubberudmyra that evening to see the open ground activities. I drove her around on 17^th and 18^th between different cricket ground in Oslo where she met and talked to several women players and even played as a wicketkeeper and a fast bowler (for which she had just improved her follow through working with Vinay Ravi on the Friday open ground). Only time will tell the real impact of her visit on the women cricket scene in Norway but there was excitement in the air while she was around and many young girls did atleast think that sport has the power to create this kind of passion that someone will take up a two-year world-wide tour to explore it.

Right after that weekend we were back to the grind and got busy organizing the next open Friday. That Friday our specialist volunteer was Pratik Agnihotri. Pratik was not someone new to women cricket. He had briefly coached the national team with Josh and has also worked with the Falken Girls team. When I invited him, we briefly discussed about the role mindset plays in sports and he said that he will talk about the role of ‘mentality’ in sports. At the back of my mind, I was a little skeptical as new players want action more than just lecture but I knew the kind of impact Pratik could make as he impacted me hugely when I trained under him for a few months three years back. To balance the situation, I asked him to include shot selection in batting as a part of ‘mentality matters’ talk. The session was well received but I did not get a chance to talk to many girls about what they thought of that session. The main mantra that Pratik gave was that one should aim to improve every time even though it might be only by 1% or even less. As far as we have a goal and we improve we are on the right track. A couple of days after the ‘mentality matters’ session, Mirab Razwan, a 20-year-old relatively new player sent me a message that some girls want to train on their own on Tuesday evening and can I and Bijeyata drop by to help them set up some drills there. We thought it must be some girls from her club team and agreed to drop by. When we went there, she was alone and practicing to pitch the ball in the right area. Soon after another girl joined in followed by a few more. When the girls assembled, we realized they are from three different clubs, included 2 national team players, 2 club-level players and one newbie from the open Fridays. It is hard to explain how it felt to see these girls come together and take initiative on their own to get better. This was a goal we had in the heart when we started the open Friday initiative but probably felt so far-fetched that we never spelled it out. The next Tuesday we were invited again and purposely we went half-an-hour late to see how their session runs without our interference. On my request that girls have turned up in their club jerseys and this week they were representing all four clubs in Oslo. Our facebook group, Norges Cricketforbund - Kvinner was launched with the tagline #TogetherWeGrow. These girls have imbibed the motto in its complete sense, and it feels like everything is going to fall in place and now we can see braver dreams. Was it Jenny or Pratik or other volunteers and coaches or collectively those Friday evenings that brought everyone together and the rest probably just conspired on its own. The greater goal always supersedes individual contributions, but everyone matters, every step, however small has a role in the journey and eventually it is the process that matters. We are going to trust the process and results will follow.

As I finish writing this July blog series with this last piece, I and Bijeyata are again invited by Mirab to come and help her start as an official scorer in the league games. We are going today with a hope that the time we are giving to these girls will be passed on forward by them to the next set of girls who want to get started with cricket in any aspect of the game, be it playing, coaching, umpiring, scoring or anything else.