Plans are underway for the first national Māori women’s cricket tournament this year in Hastings. Five regional teams will compete in a series of 20 matches bringing together the finest wāhine cricketers in Aotearoa.
The opportunity has been eagerly anticipated by some of the players.
Skye Bowden (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Hine), who captains the Auckland Hearts, says, “Just the diversity and inclusivity nowadays is growing significantly in all sports, and it’s just awesome to see it part of cricket, which is my passion now and I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity.”
Skye Bowden has been named in the Tāmaki Māori women’s team and Dayle Anderson (Waikato-Tainui) has been named in the Northern District Māori women’s team and are both utilising this opportunity to learn their culture.
Anderson who graduated from the Māori secondary schoolgirl programme last year says, “Since it’s women’s, it’s going to be a huge challenge playing against older people but also sleeping in the marae and experiencing a culture that I don’t usually get to experience. I’m very excited for that.”
“It’s an incredible feeling. Things like this don’t come around too often in sports for it to be a completely full Māori wāhine is incredible and I’m extremely grateful to be a part of it and to lead the Auckland Māori side into the national tournament,” Bowden says.
‘Awesome to embrace my culture’
“We’re actually learning a haka, so that will be cool, and a waiata. It will be awesome to just embrace my culture, which is something I haven’t necessarily been able to do in other aspects so just to learn about it and express myself in my culture, I’m excited for it.”
Both women have Māori genealogy, and they have both yearned to learn their culture.
“There are a lot like me who had not as much, being able to be whole appreciating Māori culture even though it’s in our blood. In our downtime, we talked about it a lot and we did a lot of activities, we learned a haka and they made us feel special and they really nurtured it,” Anderson.says.
“There aren’t a lot of us Māori wāhine involved in cricket so connecting with others of our culture is very minimal so I guess that’s a challenge in itself, but I think we’re extremely grateful nowadays that cricket itself is quite inclusive,” Bowden says.
Bowden and Anderson hope they can be pillars of inspiration for other wāhine Māori to play cricket.