She was the first Asian woman to play for the England women’s cricket team. And she has deep roots in Calcutta. In a recent vacation to the city along with her father, Isa Guha chatted with t2 on life after retirement, and her passion project, Take Her Lead.
What have the last 14 years of your life been like, ever since you retired?
It’s been pretty crazy, to be honest. It feels more complex because when I retired, I sort of was doing a little bit of media, but it wasn’t like a full-time thing, and it gradually became full-time. I was still doing my thesis. I kept getting taken away by opportunities around the world to work. So here in India, then the CPL (Caribbean Premier League) and working at the Rio Olympics. I was doing a couple of years of radio in Australia, and then I got the big opportunity with Fox (News), seven years ago, and I was with Sky (News) and the BBC in the UK. And that’s allowed me to have other opportunities, with the Olympics and Wimbledon, and I’ve been able to branch out in that sense. But also, there was a strong feeling that I wanted to give back to the game.
And after my mum passed (in 2019), I felt like I needed a sense of purpose. So I was working more than ever, I think, partly because I didn’t want to face the grief, and then the sense of purpose came from wanting to keep her legacy going. And so that’s why I started the charity Take Her Lead, which is all about empowering women and girls in cricket.
Tell us about that initiative...
It was in 2021 when the concept came to me. Take Her Lead is to advance equity and diversity in cricket and to increase participation for women and girls, and we do that in three ways. There’s a really big dropout rate for girls in sports in the UK. They drop out between the ages of 11 and 15. There are lots of different reasons why girls might drop out.
I spent some time with Moya Dodd, a former Australian footballer. She said, boys need to be competitive to feel included. Girls need to feel included before they become competitive. And I think girls come to sport for lots of different reasons, more so than boys, it’s not just to be competitive. It’s to be with their friends, or it’s to build their confidence or help their self-esteem. And we’re seeing those challenges in the UK, especially around mental health. Women are three times more likely to develop a mental health condition, whether that’s anxiety or depression, and social media obviously has quite a big role to play in that.
So what we’re trying to do with Take Her Lead is to provide opportunities and connect players that are on the pathway to young girls who are having their first experiences of cricket. So they look up and see a female cricketer who’s been there and done it, and they have these connections, and maybe think that’s something they can aspire to be and it feels more attainable. So we’re addressing retention issues for girls.
We did a survey two years ago, and while there’s a lot of really amazing strides happening at the top level, a lot of women and girls still feel like they don’t belong in cricket, and that’s for lots of different reasons. So we want to try and change that by creating a network. We have a women’s network where women can share ideas about their experiences, how clubs can be better and more supportive of women’s cricket and sport, and also the South Asian element.
So we’ve been funding a piece of research with Birmingham City University on the barriers to entry for South Asian girls in cricket, because South Asian girls are the least likely community and gender to take part in the recommended levels of physical activity, and so cricket is a wonderful way of being able to change that, because there’s already an appetite to get involved in cricket from the South Asian community.
There’s been a huge drop-off rate of South Asian girls who get onto the pathway. There’s 11 per cent representation at the county age group, and then by professional level, there’s four per cent. So we want to try and address that. So we’re trying to work with the South Asian Cricket Academy to make sure that South Asian girls are getting all the support they need to be successful as professional cricketers. And we will then provide a framework to put back into the game of how environments can be better, how coaches can work with South Asian girls. The challenge with South Asian girls is different to South Asian men.
The things that I’ve learned in the UK can absolutely be applied here in India, like having enough access to facilities and support from home. And I think that’s starting to change with WPL (Women’s Premier League). I think WPL has been a huge driver in providing inspiration for young girls. I think there’s a huge uptake in young girls wanting to play sport, but is the framework and foundation there to catch all that attention and inspiration? When they have their first experience of cricket, it needs to be a positive one. Otherwise, they’re going to leave. The Women’s World Cup at the end of the year is going to be huge as a way of inspiring more girls, but the country needs to be prepared for when they get inspired. Infrastructure, facilities, understanding that women and girls have different needs, so female-specific training, and also we know that there’s not enough research that is female-specific, so doing more of that.
The active equity report is actually quite a good report to look at. It was done in 2024 here in India. And I know that there are some really good people doing some good work here around women’s sport. Things are changing. Progress is being made, but there’s still a lot to be done.
The long-term vision (for Take Her Lead) is to work with other countries, and through what we’ve learned, we can work with other sports. The ambition is to do something with India because I can see the vision for the future.
Since the time you started working on Take Her Lead, do you see a change?
Huge change, because the governing bodies have to be behind it too, and the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) are and the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) is. They (ECB) have a vision for supporting and making cricket the most inclusive sport, and that is why things get accelerated even more, which is great, but there are still gaps.
India is in a similar position. They’ve started the WPL. There’s more money and investment coming in for the Indian women’s cricketers. I spoke to Jhulan (Goswami) today about the Bengal cricket association (CAB) and the Pro Bengal T20 League, which has the same number of teams for the women as the men, which she really fought hard for.
What happens to these women who are playing in the WPL for the rest of the year? They need to have the right support and facilities to be able to train so that drives up the levels of competition. And the state association is really important to this. Jhulan spoke to me positively about the progress that’s being made.
This is such a big opportunity for India; all these young girls who will be inspired at the end of the year they need to have an outlet. They need to have a place to go and play. And you know, one of the biggest challenges here in India is that access to cricket for girls is too far away. You just need more clubs. But what we also find is that there are not enough female coaches, so the men are becoming the coaches. It’s important to educate the men on the idea that when a girl comes to a session, there are going to be some girls who want to be competitive, but there are some who probably don’t or they need a bit more encouragement. So the actual session needs to be tailored for girls specifically, and they need to feel safe to be able to keep coming back.
The competition has never been with men. It’s always been about equal opportunities, right?
That is a big one for commercial investment, because as soon as they recognise that women’s cricket brings a completely different audience, that’s when they recognise that they have access to a completely different fanbase to promote their brands. So that’s how we need to look at women’s cricket. Yes, there are a lot of similarities around mindset psychologically, how you’re being affected by games, how you prepare for a game, the types of shots that you’re playing, but the tactics are very different, and the way and the approach of the girls are slightly different.
And in terms of the viewing experience, it’s slightly different, but what we’ve seen in the UK is that the audience is very different for a women’s game. In India, I think you get a lot of families going to IPL games... I’d be interested to know what the stats are in terms of the viewing figures for the WPL and the number of new people who are watching the WPL. But, yeah, you’re right. It’s not about competing with the men. I think there probably was an element of the men supporting the growth of women’s cricket, and there are a lot of lessons we can take from the men’s growth that the women can learn from to make sure that they don’t face the same challenges. But there will come a point where women’s cricket can stand on its own two feet, and it’s interesting because it’s new, and you’re learning about different stories, which I find is so interesting from a narrative point of view as broadcasters.
I think cricket as a whole can only survive if the women’s game is thriving as well as the men’s. We’ve got to remember that cricket’s in competition with other sports. In the UK, football is the number one sport, cricket is out there, but how can it sustain itself for the future? You just have to have more people playing it and being interested in it. It feels like it’s on the right trajectory.
Isa’s hair and make-up:
Bridgette Jones Fashion Salon