Photo Credit: Cricket Scotland
Scotland international Chloe Abel is spending the winter in her home state, Tasmania, continuing her cricket development alongside her university education.
Abel, who made her debut against Italy in the Women’s T20 World Cup Europe Qualifier last month, will be detailing her experiences down under throughout the winter on cricketscotland.com:
I’ve been back in Tasmania for three weeks now, and I’m playing for my hometown club New Town in Hobart, where I’m the First Grade Captain.
We’re two weeks into the new season, although the weather hasn’t been too different to that in the UK at times!
Alongside my cricket, I’m currently doing a bachelor’s degree in nursing at the University of Tasmania, where I’m in the last semester of my third of four years.
It’s interesting sometimes trying to balance being a semi-professional athlete with being a full-time student, but I’m really enjoying it, and it can give me another outlet to escape from cricket when I need it.
Healthcare is something I’ve always been interested in. When I finished school, I initially wanted to do paramedicine, but that would have been difficult as I was playing cricket professionally at that time, so I decided on nursing instead.
My granny was a nurse, and my grandfather was a doctor, so I guess the medical gene runs in the family! I’m just really looking forward to being able to get out in the real world and do my best to help people.
This was the first summer I’d spent in the UK, and it was great to experience playing on the other side of the world, living by yourself, and doing all the things you’d do back home in a different country.
I think it was really good for my personal development and cricket development, and I’ve said to a lot of people that it’s always nice to get away and have a fresh start, and a bit of a clean slate.
Hobart’s a small place where everyone knows everyone, so being in the UK, especially in London, which is such a vast city, you get that fresh start, people can see my cricket skills for what they are, and I really enjoyed that.
The highlight of the summer was of course making my Scotland debut, which was amazing and emotional.
My Scottish heritage is super important to me and my family, and it was really nice to have my 82-year-old grandmother, a true Glaswegian, fly over with my parents to be there.
To have my cap presented to me by Kathryn Bryce, who I spent a lot of time with in Tasmania the season before, when she played for my team down here, was really special.
They’re such a great group of girls, everyone’s really welcoming, and it was good to play with people like that.
I think it was super good to be able to perform for Scotland, take some wickets, and do my job for the team, so I was super happy from a personal perspective.
From a team perspective, we started off a little bit rocky, but having that trust in the coaches and the process of what we’re trying to do and what we’re trying to achieve was important, and to win the qualifier was a great feeling.
It’s good that the girls are getting across to Spain and playing in a place where they’ve got some good memories from not too long ago, and hopefully they can try and carry that momentum forward into the Ireland series.
It’s brilliant that they’re getting the opportunity to play 50-over cricket, which will only be a positive for everyone’s development. I sent the girls a message to wish them good luck, and I’ll be following closely as best I can!
This piece was written prior to the start of Scotland’s Celtic Challenge series with Ireland.
