Anderson, who graduated from the Māori secondary schoolgirl programme last year, says: “Since it’s women’s, it’s going to be a huge challenge playing against older people, but also sleeping in the marae and experiencing a culture that I don’t usually get to experience ... I’m very excited for that.”
Bowden adds: “It’s an incredible feeling. Things like this don’t come around too often in sports for it to be a completely full Māori wāhine is incredible and I’m extremely grateful to be a part of it and to lead the Auckland Māori side into the national tournament.”
‘Awesome to embrace my culture’
“We’re actually learning a haka, so that will be cool, and a waiata. It will be awesome to just embrace my culture, which is something I haven’t necessarily been able to do in other aspects so just to learn about it and express myself in my culture, I’m excited for it,” Bowden says.
Both women have Māori genealogy, and they have both yearned to learn their culture.
“There are a lot like me who had not as much, being able to be whole appreciating Māori culture even though it’s in our blood. In our downtime, we talked about it a lot and we did a lot of activities, we learned a haka and they made us feel special and they really nurtured it,” Anderson says.
“There aren’t a lot of us Māori wāhine involved in cricket so connecting with others of our culture is very minimal so I guess that’s a challenge in itself, but I think we’re extremely grateful nowadays that cricket itself is quite inclusive,” Bowden says.
Bowden and Anderson hope they can be pillars of inspiration for other wāhine Māori to play cricket.
