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Jay Dansinghani

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.

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.”


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Cricket has been a family affair for Natasha (left), Anita and Rodney Miles. Photo: Handout

Anita Miles (centre) poses with HKCC and Craigengower CC players ahead of a 2015 match. Photo: Handout

Betty Chan (left) and Chan Sau-ha (centre left) pose with England players after a match with Australia. Photo: Handout

Chan Sau-ha (left) and Betty Chan (right) with Southern Vipers player and coach Nancy Harman. Photo: Handout

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Australia’s Pat Cummins celebrates after England’s Jonny Bairstow was run out, having left his crease thinking, wrongly, that the bowler had finished his over during the second match of the England vs Australia test cricket series. English fans said it wasn’t fair play. Photo: Action Images via Reuters

Spectators react during the England vs Australia test match at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. England fans accused Australia of breaching the spirit of the game over an incident during the match. Photo: AP

Britain’s late Queen Elizabeth meets back-room staff in the Long Room at Lord’s Cricket Ground ahead of an England-Australia match in 2013. Until 1999 the monarch was the only woman allowed in the Long Room. Photo: Getty Images

Asian Games: the Hong Kong experts from cricket, cycling and horse racing making sure Hangzhou event runs smoothly

Jashim Uddin (second from left) is the cricket ground consultant for the Asian Games in Hangzhou. Photo: Handout

Jashim Uddin also helped out at the Games in Guangzhou in 2010. Photo: Handout

Hong Kong cycling officials Alex Wong (sixth from right) and Walter Yu (fourth from right) will take on important roles in Hangzhou. Photo: Handout

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Ruchitha Venkatesh of Hong Kong slogs to the off side on a day when her side were guilty of some rash shots against India A. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

India A batter Trisha Gongsdi concentrates against Hong Kong at Tin Kwong Road on Tuesday. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

Sport

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


Miles is getting ready to represent Hong Kong in the Asian Games, and helps to run the Anita Miles Foundation, which provides scholarships for local women to play in the UK.


Cricket Hong Kong