Warwick Women: Sophia Abbasi

In honour of this year’s International Women’s Week, we spoke to some of Warwick’s most inspiring women. With Varsity on our minds, we decided to look at the sports teams on campus, and realised that you can’t get more passionate talking about sports than Sophia Abbasi. She is the founder and president of the Warwick Women’s Cricket Club, the first of its kind on campus.

What inspired you to start a women’s cricket club?

I’ve played cricket my whole life and so when I came to uni, I just expected to be able to carry on playing. Ultimately, I still could have carried on without setting up a Women’s Club, just playing within the Men’s club set up, for their friendlies teams. But when I got here and realised there wasn’t a Women’s club, I was shocked and also disappointed – I thought it was outrageous that a university like Warwick had a Men’s set up, but not a Women’s, especially considering the nationwide rise in participation in the Women’s game over the last five or ten years. I think it was partly the anger I felt, at the fact that there wasn’t an equal opportunity for women to play cricket here at Warwick, that made me want to set the club up. But I also wanted other women to have the opportunity to benefit from everything cricket has to offer, just as I have done throughout my life.

How did you go about setting it up?

The first thing I did was gatecrash one of the Men’s club’s nets sessions! I wanted to ask them what cricket I could get involved in, and whether they’d had interest from any other women. I then contacted those few who had shown interest, and we started turning up to the Men’s friendlies nets sessions. I knew I wanted to start a Women’s club, so I spoke to several people about how I would go about doing that, and then I set up a Facebook page and just kept telling people about it – the first stage of setting up a club is showing that there’s interest for it! In the summer term I ran weekly outdoor training sessions for those who had shown interest, and a few of us played in some of the Friendlies games that year. Over the summer holidays I did a lot of emailing, trying to get advice and funding from various places, like the ECB and Warwickshire County Cricket Board, and I worked closely with the Men’s club, especially this year’s exec, and we managed to organise a stand at sports fair, and from there it’s really taken off! We had 120 people sign up at Sports Fair and since then we’ve run training sessions every week, played in the Coventry Indoor league, run our own charity indoor cricket tournament and done lots of really fun socials! The next stage in terms of becoming an official club, is filling in various forms, such as a projected budget for next year, and then sending them off!

What has been the most challenging thing about starting and running your own sport club?

I think the most challenging thing has been the publicity side of things and getting the word out about the club. Especially last year when I was trying to drum up initial interest, trying to let people know about this new club was hard work! In that sense, Sports Fair was really important for us, and for me, the women who are part of the club’s exec have been such an integral part of getting this club off the ground – they’ve really helped to spread the word, and get more women involved! Now we have great levels of interest, but initially that was definitely the most challenging part of getting the club started.

What has been your proudest achievement as president of UWWCC?

That’s a really tough question, because there have been so many moments where I’ve been incredibly proud of this club and everyone who’s in it; times in nets and in games, where I’ve seen the women master something they’ve been working on for the last three or four weeks (which have made me incredibly proud as a coach!), at socials, seeing so many women, all from different backgrounds, chatting and laughing together, and the moment when we realised that we’d reached 30 paying members, which meant that we could start the official process of becoming a club, made me incredibly proud of all our hard work! I think, though, my most proud moment as president was the charity tournament that we ran – seeing so many women, all from different sports, many of whom had never even tried cricket before, playing and, most importantly, enjoying playing cricket, was incredible! The success of that day, and the happy, bubbly atmosphere just made me so proud of everyone in the club, especially those who participated and helped out, and really proved to me just how far we’d come win such a short space of time!

What is your favourite thing about UWWWC?

I think my favourite thing about the club is the people, and consequently the atmosphere around the club – I’ve met some really friendly, happy and funny people and made some incredible friends! I always look forward to any UWWCC event, whether that’s training, games or something social, because I know that it’ll be fun! The atmosphere around the club is so friendly and welcoming – whether you’re a county cricketer or a complete beginner, there’s a place for everyone in this club, and I love that.

Do you think sport on campus is as inclusive to women as it is to men?

I don’t think it’s quite as inclusive for women yet, and therefore I think it’s important that we draw attention to it. I think the fact I had to set this club up, sort of demonstrates that. There wasn’t really any cricket available to women before, and I’m sure cricket isn’t the only sport where this disparity still exists. As someone who has always played sport throughout my life, I didn’t think twice about getting involved in sport here, but I know from speaking to other women, that many haven’t found it particularly easy to get involved. I also know that some women have been put off taking part in, or have quit certain sports, because of the difference in treatment between men and women within that sport. I do, however, think that Warwick has been really proactive in trying to get more women involved in sport on campus, especially through it’s support of campaigns such as ‘This Girl Can’, and hopefully in ten years time, this issue of inclusivity won’t even be something that needs to be discussed.

Ultimately, what are your goals for the Women’s Cricket Club?

My ultimate goal for this club is for it to keep growing and developing so that in a few years time, we’ll be properly competitive in the BUCS leagues. Not to say that we won’t be competitive this year, but I think, as is the ultimate aim of most sports clubs, we want to be winning leagues, which I think will be achievable in a few years time. At the same time, I also want the club to one of best at inspiring women to get involved in sport – this is an incredibly inclusive club, that is constantly introducing new women to cricket. One of the reasons this club has been successful so far, is that we have so many beginners learning and enjoying the game. It’s actually really impressive just how quickly members have managed to pick up bowling and batting, because they’re not easy skills to learn from scratch. One of my main aims when setting up this club was to get as many women as possible playing cricket, and I think we’ve been really successful in that area, so I want to see that continue long into the future!

What woman inspires you the most? Why?

Honestly, the woman who inspires me the most is my mum, because she’s the strongest, most positive and resilient woman I know. She brought me up with the belief that I had the same right to play sport as my brother did, and that belief has got me through all the sexism I’ve encountered throughout my sporting life – without this belief, I probably wouldn’t have set up the Women’s Cricket Club here. She never let me believe I was worth less than any of my male peers, and imbued me with a feminist spirit that I carry into everything I do. Growing up, I saw her deal with so many different sexist comments and views, and break down all sorts of sexist stereotypes, and how I deal with similar situations and live my life is entirely influenced by her. Her ‘can do’ attitude to everything she does, is what inspires me the most, and I try to emulate that in everything I do.