As a young child, Bury born Kate Cross would be roped in to play cricket in the garden with her older brother. He needed a bowler to practice his batting and as the younger sibling, Kate was happy to oblige.
Those hours spent delivering ball after ball were clearly not wasted. The 32 year old is now an integral part of the England Women’s Cricket Team which has just kicked off a huge summer of sport.
To get to where she is today, Kate has certainly notched up a fair share of firsts - a testimony to her determination and ‘northern stubbornness’ as she calls it when we chat ahead of the Team’s next Series match against Pakistan at Headingley in Leeds.
Aged nine years, Kate was determined to join her local cricket club and played as part of the U11’s team. She was the only girl but her teammates were just that - mates and they viewed Kate as one of the team. Comments were never far away though when they competed. Kate says: “Being part of the team felt normal and comfortable for me but when we would go and play against a team that didn’t have a girl playing for them they would comment and say ‘oh that team must be weak because they have a girl playing for them.’ To be honest I thrived on it and it made me determined to prove them wrong.”
And prove them wrong she did, when aged 15 she became the first female to be accepted into the Lancashire Cricket Academy. She says: “It was a great opportunity for me but I certainly didn’t realise how impactful it would be. I was just a kid who loved playing cricket and was desperate to play and train more. Girls have their own Academy now but back then it was me and 14 lads for three years. Now it is recognised that getting a group of girls together and training together is beneficial.”
There is the adage that ‘you cannot be what you cannot see’ and thankfully girls today can see that there are opportunities to make sport a career. Kate and her teammates show that - and they take the role seriously. She says: "This is something we talk about a lot in the dressing room. We really want to inspire the next generation to want to play the game and let girls know that there are now career opportunities available to them. I didn’t have that when I started playing as a kid. I think it is great that kids can put their heart and soul into sport and come out with a career or job at the end of it as well.” Kate is now an established member of the national side, skippered by Rochdale born Heather Knight. Back in 2014, Kate was one of 18 women to be awarded the first professional contracts by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
Away from the pitch, Kate and best friend Alex Hartley, a former England cricketer, host their own weekly BBC Podcast, No Balls: The Cricket Podcast, which is recorded at Salford Quays. While there are now a host of sports people with podcasts, Kate and Alex were at the forefront of female podcasters when they started it in 2019. “We absolutely love it,” says Kate. “We call it our weekly counselling session because it’s two mates having a chat about what we’ve been up to, what we are going through, what’s good and what’s bad. It also opens the door for people to see into the lifestyle of professional sport. Also, when we first started, from the outside everything in cricket looked great but actually there were issues and difficulties and still quite a lot of sexism in sport so it was great to be able to showcase that as human beings and not as cricketers.”
When Kate calls it a ‘counselling session’ she is only half joking. The podcast allows Kate to talk openly about her own mental health after experiencing a breakdown in 2016. “Alex and I will never pretend to be ok when we are not and we are honest with our listeners. At times it was hard touring the world. You are in hotel rooms on your own a lot and away from your family, missing birthdays and weddings and it can be quite difficult. I hope that by being open, if it encourages just one person to talk to someone or see their doctor if they are struggling, then that has helped.”
Now back in love with the sport and living in Didsbury, Kate is passionate about Manchester as a place to live and work. She says: “I love Manchester - all the opportunities I have had have come from living and being in Manchester. The thing I have always loved about the city is that there’s something for everyone, whether it’s music, sport or culture. The history as well - I am really proud of the worker bee and we incorporate a lot of that ethic into our cricket. We have that northern stubbornness to do well. The bee is the symbol of the Manchester Originals team and while I don’t play for them anymore, that was something I was really proud to have represented.”
Manchester is now proving a draw for aspiring cricketers. Kate says: “What we are now seeing is that as more money is coming into the game, especially at regional level, people have to move. We have managed to bring a lot of players from London and elsewhere and they love the vibrancy of Manchester.”
Kate and her teammates will head to Bangladesh in October for the T20 World Cup. But first they have a summer of fixtures on home soil. Tickets are selling fast. You can find out where they are playing HERE.
