Abtaha Maqsood: The hijab-wearing Scotland cricketer breaking stereotypes

Familial support has been crucial for Maqsood. Her parents are Pakistani, and her dad lives and breathes cricket. She and her siblings would be glued to the television every time Pakistan played, while she learnt the game during keenly-contested garden matches.

It was her dad who “looked at my action and said, ‘Your wrist is naturally going as a leg-spinner does — it will be easier for you if you just start doing that’.” It proved sound advice.

Maqsood’s formative cricketing years were spent at the now defunct Poloc Cricket Club in Glasgow. She still vividly remembers her first training session in the summer of 2012. “I went in thinking that there will be a whole women’s team there,” she says, laughing. “That’s how it was kind of sold to me by my parents. But I was the only one!

“I went with my older brother, and at the end of training we played Kwik cricket. I remember hitting the ball pretty far at one point and the boys going, ‘She can actually hold a bat!’”

Meteoric rise of the ‘wicket-thief’

By the end of that summer, a 12-year-old Maqsood was representing Scotland Under-17s. Just two seasons on, she was a fully fledged international.

Maqsood’s on-field skills have taken her a long way in a short time, and she is also thriving away from the pitch. She has twice appeared on CBeebies’ Bedtime Stories. “I want to do it again,” she says. “I feel like I could do it better this time. But it was amazing how many people messaged me and said, ‘Oh, my little niece watched’, or, ‘My daughter has watched it, and she loves you’.” Maqsood is also midway through a dentistry degree, albeit currently on hold.