Ah the sounds of summer... the buzz of the bumble bee, the sizzling of the BBQ and hum of happy chatter as we all make the most of the sunshine.
These are the quintessential sounds of the warmer seasons. But for many, it’s the distinctive ‘crack’ of ball on cricket bat that indicates summer has arrived. And with the ICC Women's T20 World Cup in full swing, cricket fans across the country are grabbing their sun cream and bucket hats to settle into their ideal summer of sport.
Bath alumna and former professional cricket player Fran Wilson (BSc Sport Performance 2014) will certainly be joining them. “I definitely want to catch some games in Bristol,” she says. "I have quite a few friends in the England team who I played with, so it’s nice being able to support them.”
With 64 appearances for England — one of her most impressive being part of the team which won the 2017 Women's Cricket World Cup — and now as Women’s Head Coach for Gloucestershire, Wilson will be watching with a slightly different perspective than many. “I enjoy being a coach so it’s fun for me to watch the games from that view,” she says. “But I do have a bit of distance from the team now so I can also just be a fan and a good friend and support them which is great.”
Despite her love of cricket, it was football that took up most of Wilson’s spare time during her studies at Bath — captaining the University women’s football first team in her second and fourth years. She later threw herself back into cricket and credits some of the lessons she learnt during her time playing football to helping shape her impressive 11-year career as a professional player.
“It taught me how to play performance sport; training every week and playing against some really good teams,” she explains. “Because of my previous cricket background, the football girls maybe saw me as a bit of leader so being able to practice those leadership skills and feel like everyone was following me was a really cool experience. And that first experience of coaching in my second year — leading a programme — I still use a lot of what I learnt in that year now as a coach. It was a valuable experience.”
She adds, “I also made incredible friendships; they’re still some of my best friends now.”
Her dedication to sport at Bath was recognised in her winning Sports Personality of the Year at the 2014 Blues Awards. And she is not the only professional cricket player to be celebrated at Bath, with Anya Shrubsole MBE and Marcus Trescothick MBE, both receiving Honorary Degrees in 2018.
Cricket has long been a part of the fabric of sport at the University. While it's difficult to pinpoint the exact year the women's team was established, men's cricket has been associated with the University as early as 1929.
“I think women’s cricket at Bath was very much in its infancy during my time playing for the University,” recalls Jane Mash (BPharm Pharmacy 1987). “We pulled together a team from whoever was interested — whether or not they had played before. Our team really came into being through hockey players looking for a summer sport and we relied on sweet talking members of the men’s team to give us some basic coaching and to umpire our games which were mainly friendlies against local universities. I think it is fair to say that, as a team, our enthusiasm was greater than our skill!”
Alumna Sonja Ljubojevic (BEng Mechanical Engineering 1989) also fondly remembers her time playing the sport at Bath in the ‘80s — at one point taking on the role of captain. “My fondest memory is beating Exeter on their grounds to win the SWSSA cup — possibly in 1988,” she remembers. “We then went onto the BUSA final against Loughborough, also on their home turf, and got completely thrashed on a muddy wicket!”
Sonja still picks up a cricket bat today and is the Women’s Cricket Chairman at Duffield CC near Derby. “We have massively developed women’s cricket at the club, now running two women’s hardball XIs, and eight aside hardball team, a softball team and a full set of junior age group girls' teams.”
Both men’s and women’s cricket have a strong presence within University of Bath community today, having grown in strength and size since it was first played on campus all those years ago. The men's section had an incredibly successful year, seeing a double promotion for the 1st and 2nd teams in both BUCS leagues with each team going unbeaten. And with a squad of an impressive 35 active players, the women’s section finished third out of nine teams this past season.
“I've loved playing for the team,” says women's club captain Sirisha Gorantla (BA Education with Psychology 2027). “One of the things that makes Bath special is that it’s one of the few university cricket clubs that genuinely sees itself as one club rather than two separate men’s and women’s sections. There’s a real sense of unity across the whole club.”
And she’s not wrong, with chairman Rupert Baverstock (BSc Biomedical Sciences 2028) already gripped by the action unfolding in the ICC Women's T20 World Cup. “Seeing the growth of the women's game has been incredible,” he says. “It would be amazing to see us lift the trophy for the first time since 2009, and this years' squad seems in the perfect position to do so.”
Let’s hope for no sticky wickets in this year’s tournament!
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