Isa Guha: Star of the Silver Seam

The clichés churned out to aspiring sportsmen and women are as numerous as they are mundane. Any self-respecting teenager will surely find the well-worn spiel about ‘having something to fall back on’ or ‘finding more strings to their bow,’ extremely patronising. When enthusiasm is burning ardently, it is extremely tempting to ignore advice regarding the far-off future. Well, Isa Guha clearly listened intently. Now, she is reaping the rewards.

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Television viewers across Britain will become accustomed to the sight of Guha over the next couple of months, as ITV 4 have employed her, both as a pundit and a presenter, for their extensive coverage of the Indian Premier League. If that is not impressive enough, she is also finding time to write for GQ India whilst continuing her part-time PhD in biochemistry. In short, she is a very busy, very versatile girl.

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However, it is Guha’s medium-paced bowling that has provided the foundations from which all of these other talents have been able to flourish.

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Making her England debut at the tender age of 17, the Berkshire seamer is now a battle-hardened veteran of 108 international matches across all three formats of the game. What is more, for a sizeable portion of the last decade, Guha occupied the very summit of the International Cricket Council’s bowling rankings. A key member of two victorious World Cup campaigns to boot, there is little that she has not achieved on a cricket field.

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With these accomplishments in mind, as well as the startling fact that she has yet to celebrate her twenty-sixth birthday, the modesty that laces Guha’s sentiments is extremely striking.

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“I’ve been involved with the national setup for nearly nine years now,” she muses. “So I do feel like a senior player, although there are also three or four other girls who have been around for the same amount of time.”

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“It’s a good position to be in. I can call upon my experience but, at the same time, I do not feel like a consistent selection because of the fierce competition for places. That can only be a good thing for women’s cricket in this country.”

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England’s women will need every ounce of determination they can muster from one another. In the wake of that glorious 2009, things have not gone completely to plan, either for the side collectively, or for Guha individually. The recent tour of Australia, for instance, yielded an inconsistent assortment of results. Despite thumping their hosts 4-1 in the Twenty20s, England were well beaten in both the one-off Test match and the three-match 50-over series.

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With all the conscientiousness of a senior squad member, Guha staunchly refuses to dwell on any negative connotations this winter may have unearthed. Even so, continuing in her characteristically thoughtful manner, she cannot deny cricket’s tendency to compel bouts of philosophical soul-searching, especially when an ecstatic pinnacle is so fresh in the memory.

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“Winning the Twenty20 series (in Australia this January) with some good, brave cricket was brilliant,” Guha goes on. “We came back thinking that, overall, we had done a pretty good job. We are definitely on the way to becoming the best team in the world again.”

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“2009 was such a great year and we established ourselves as the best side in the world, maybe be the best England has ever produced. No one had ever done what we did, winning the fifty and twenty over World Cups as well as whitewashing the Aussies.”

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“After reaching a goal like that, having spent so long working towards it, it can get hard to keep yourself motivated. When I got dropped last year, for the first time in my career, I fought to regain my place and realised how much I valued playing for England.”

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Such a catharsis seems to have reignited Guha’s passion for the sport, and will doubtlessly ensure that her determined pursuit of international representation continues for years to come. Just as well, too, because this passion is a staunch pre-requisite.

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Though Guha loyally states "the English Cricket Board supports us as well as they can," she also concedes that the grants paid out to the national squad each month for cricket alone “simply do not pay the bills.” Moreover, the basic off-pitch logistics of playing for Berkshire seem rather painstaking. Her father’s company, Phoenix Retail, is one of her county’s chief sponsors, offering financial backing for simple essentials such as travel and accommodation during the season. With so many financial hurdles to overcome, the momentum of self-motivation is crucial in the semi-professional instability of the women’s game. The ship is being steadied, though.

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Just a fortnight ago, the ECB made the glaringly overdue announcement that, from this season, England women will be incorporated into the Professional Cricketer’s Association. This support network will prove invaluable to those within the set-up who lack career prospects on the other side of the boundary rope. Guha, as you can imagine, does not fall into that bracket.

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“In light of our funding situation, there is a need to focus on your studies,” she says, outlining the industrious off-field pursuits that have widened her future options. “If we get injured one day, there might not be anything there. I happened to choose biochemistry because it was challenging and interesting. Going on to do work experience and then a PhD was a natural progression for me.”

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“I really thought that I would go into science but cricket has given so much, in terms of opportunities, that everything is wide open. I don’t have a clue where I am going to be in fifteen years time, but to have given something to women in sport would be fantastic.”�

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Knowledgeable and intelligent, offering considered opinion on the helter-skelter IPL tournament, as well as respectful analysis of world cricket’s exhilarating elite, Guha is already doing her bit to raise awareness of women’s cricket every time she takes to the ITV4 sofa. Turning her attention to this particular gig, her love for cricket exuberantly exposes her youth for the first time.

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“To be able to sit there and watch cricket isn’t bad at all, I guess,” Guha broadly smiles. “It’s a good laugh, there’s always banter flying around and I know a few of the other pundits as well from being around the England squad and meeting them at awards dinners.”

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“There really is nothing else like the IPL, just because of the sheer razzmatazz of the whole competition. You can feel the essence of the whole thing when you look at a team like the Mumbai Indians, who have Sachin Tendulkar, Lasith Malinga and Keiron Pollard in the same side. That just ensures fireworks!”

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It is certainly reassuring that Guha can reserve such fervour for cricket, even with her other diverse and time-consuming commitments buzzing around in her mind. Finishing with a flurry of dreamy contemplation, her imagination is truly charming.

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“Twenty20 is such a great vehicle to raise the profile of cricket and it’s something I’d love to see in the women’s game. Having teams with (England’s) Claire Taylor or Charlotte Edwards playing alongside (Australian all-rounder) Shelley Nitschke or (Indian fast bowler) Jhulan Goswami would be just brilliant.”

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With her ambition, dedication and aptitude so blatant across many fields, there must be a pretty long queue to be on Isa Guha’s side, too.�

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Isa Guha is exclusively represented by Total Sport Promotions. For more information, visit�www.totalsportpromotions.com.

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