Hong Kong cricket star Natasha Miles follows in mother’s footsteps, honouring her trailblazing legacy in women’s cricket
- Along with teammates Chan Sau-ha and Betty Chan, Miles is getting ready to represent Hong Kong in the Asian Games in Hangzhou
- Miles helps to run the Anita Miles Foundation, which provides scholarships for local women to play in the UK
In April this year, Hong Kong off-spinner Betty Chan dismissed Laura Wolvaardt, one of the world’s best female cricketers, while playing for Team Spirit at the FairBreak Invitational tournament at the Kowloon Cricket Club.
Yet, her celebrations weren’t extravagant. She had a plan to dismiss Wolvaardt. She wasn’t surprised that it worked.
At the turn of the century, this would have been unfathomable. Back then, Hong Kong did not have a national women’s team.
That started to change when Anita Miles developed an interest in the sport. Her husband Rodney Miles, who would go onto become the president of the Hong Kong Cricket Association (since rebranded as Cricket Hong Kong), would regularly organise overseas tours for clubs and players based in Hong Kong, bringing his wife Anita and daughter Natasha along for company.
It was after one such tour with a Craigengower Cricket Club team in 2001 that Anita, almost four times her daughter’s age, started playing regularly with Natasha.
“I want to do it with you,” Natasha recalls her mother saying to her.
