Hong Kong Cricket Star Natasha Miles Follows in Mother’s Footsteps, Honouring Her Trailblazing Legacy in Women’s Cricket

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.

For HKCC’s 150th anniversary celebrations, Anita got together with her friends to organise an exhibition game between HKCC and the Kowloon Cricket Club, recruiting any women who were interested to play for the newly formed teams.

As her passion for cricket grew, so did her ambitions for spreading the sport to local communities. Working closely with the Hong Kong Cricket Association, she was part of a team of coaches that introduced cricket into more local schools. This gave HKCA a large enough player pool to launch its first-ever women’s league in 2004, which featured three teams, including one that was composed entirely of ethnically Chinese athletes.

If it wasn’t for Anita Miles, Betty says her career of nearly two-decades would not have seen as many achievements. Moreover, Anita’s financial support meant that players from humbler backgrounds, like Betty, could afford to play the game.

“At that moment, if you needed to play cricket, you needed to buy [expensive] equipment. And there weren’t a lot of people to call to train with you. But Anita Miles did not mind [training with us],” says Betty.

In 2006, Hong Kong toured Pakistan for their first-ever international series. Natasha was part of that squad along with Betty and left-arm spinner Chan Sau-ha, both teenagers at the time.

Soon after the historic tour, Natasha put her Hong Kong career on hold to play in the UK in pursuit of her dream to represent England. In 2021, a change in eligibility criteria meant she could play for a developing cricket nation while still being eligible for England. This paved the way for her Hong Kong comeback after a decade and a half.

This September, 17 years after playing in Hong Kong’s first ever international series against Pakistan, the trio will reunite as part of Hong Kong’s squad for the Asian Games in Hangzhou.

Yet, Natasha is more than just a teammate. Along with father Rodney and former Hong Kong player Jasmine Titmuss, she runs the Anita Miles Foundation that provides fully funded scholarships to two local players every year to play cricket in the UK. This year, the foundation has awarded scholarships to Betty Chan and Chan Sau-ha.

In addition to living on their own and playing for club teams in the Hampshire Cricket League, the duo are training regularly with the Southern Vipers, a professional regional domestic side in England.

“Continuing with the momentum built in the first week, I found myself benefiting even more from the one-to-one sessions I had with [Vipers player and coach] Nancy Harman, especially with batting,” Sau-ha said of her second week in the UK.

Harman being a leg spinner works in favour of Betty, who wants to develop her batting against slower bowlers. While she is yet to get an opportunity to bat in the UK, Betty is using her game time in England to test some of the bowling variations Harman is teaching her. In her previous game for her club Aldershot, she conceded a mere 13 runs in eight overs, picking up three wickets.

Both players have also had the opportunity to work on their coaching, which will help them to spread the game across the local community in much the same way that Anita did.

“I was pleasantly surprised by what I experienced,” Sau-ha said of her first session with her club’s junior team. “Many girls and parents turned up and I loved how lively the ground was with training, under-11 and under-17 games happening.”

The combination of individualised training and game time allows the players to work on skills during Hong Kong’s off-season, which will benefit them as they gear up for September’s Games.

As for the foundation, Natasha said they were just getting started.

“Jasmine, my dad and I have spoken that if you’re looking five, 10 or 15 years from now, it would be great if we could work alongside Cricket Hong Kong, allowing these girls to develop themselves as people as well as their cricket,” she said. “That can expand beyond local Chinese girls.”