2022 has been a remarkable year for Isa Guha, the cricketer-turned-broadcaster. After establishing herself as a familiar face in cricket broadcasting across the globe, she expanded to other sports in a major way, as she fronted BBC’s Wimbledon and Commonwealth Games coverage.
More significantly, she officially launched her charitable foundation, Take Her Lead, in September 2022, with a mission to ‘create a more inclusive environment to make sure that every woman and girl has the best possible experience of cricket - wherever, whenever and however they're involved’.
As a World Cup winner in the One-Day and T20 format and a three-time Ashes winner, Guha is a role model in her own right within the women’s game. But, she says her new mission is inspired by her mother Roma, who died of cancer in 2019.
“We all have women in our lives that we draw inspiration from, and mine was my Mum, Roma,” she wrote in the charity’s website. “A teacher herself, she found happiness in guiding people towards their goals or forwarding people as she liked to call it. She believed in humanity, and was interested in learning from different cultures through her respect for others and drive to create an inclusive environment wherever she went.”
With partners including the ACE Programme Charity and MCC Foundation, the pilot programmes they launched in the last summer saw over 300 aspiring cricketers, girls aged 8-18, hearing from 11 elite cricketers in mentoring sessions.
The first Asian woman to represent England in any sport when she made her debut in 2002, aged 17, Guha has always been at the forefront of efforts to encourage more players of Asian origin into professional cricket. She is a patron of the South Asian Cricket Academy, an intervention programme which aims to increase the percentage of British Asian players within the professional game.
She also sits on the advisory group as part of the England & Wales Cricket Board’s ambitious action plan to better engage with South Asian communities.
In a playing career that spanned a decade, the right arm fast-medium bowler was part of one of the most successful teams in English sporting history, and topped the ICC rankings for bowlers in 2008. At the time of her retirement in April 2012, Guha was positioned as the second-highest wicket-taker in the all-time England Women’s ODI list and sixth in the world, having been scalped 113 caps.
