Hello everyone, Abi Slade here

On Saturday 29th August, I went for a pint with Mattchin Tendulkar. Many of you won’t understand the significance of that statement, especially my friends who don’t like cricket, so let me explain.   In the depths of the internet, there exists a ‘loosely cricket-based podcast’ called Tailenders. I started listening to the podcast in around August last year, during the 2019 Ashes, after being recommended it by many  many  people. Started in 2017 by BBC radio DJ Greg James, guitarist of  The Maccabees  Felix White and England’s greatest ever bowler Jimmy Anderson, the podcast was intended to cover the 2017 Ashes series. However, for many reasons, the podcast quickly gathered a huge fanbase and has continued to this day. One of these reasons, I strongly believe, was the introduction of cult hero Mattchin Tendulkar to the nation’s hearts.    In one of the first few episodes of Tailenders, the hosts asked listeners to ring in if they had any fun cricketer-...

To say that my life has been taken over by cricket over the last year is probably an understatement.   My interest in cricket began in primary school, because, as is the case with so many others, my older brother enjoyed it. From age seven through to age ten, I was the only girl on the Kwik Cricket team, which was great as I was always on the First team - they needed at least one girl in order to compete. It should be said that I was in no way good at it; when I look at videos of myself now, my technique was unusual (to say the absolute least) and not impressive or successful in any way, shape or form. The boys on the team all had weekend cricket teams to further their love for the game, but I believed (and still believe - I was shocking) that I wasn't good enough for that. However, I loved it, and that was the main thing.   On joining secondary school, I knew that I wanted to continue with the cricket. However, this was a whole new world. We were abandoning Kwik Cricket for...