Saskia Horley’s remarkable path: From Sydney suburbs to Scotland’s T20 World Cup

DUBAI: Saskia Horley started playing football and cricket in her backyard with her dad while growing up in Sydney. She was a part of the Gordon Women’s Cricket Club while playing some football for Northern Tigers FC.

One thing led to another and she got to feature in an episode of the series called ‘Undercover Coach’ by Disney Channel in Australia, where an international athlete would coach the young player for a day. Naturally, Horley’s coach was dual international Ellyse Perry, who had represented her national side in both sports at that time.

It has been years since that episode aired, but Horley still gets plenty of questions about the experience of meeting her hero, even from her Scotland teammates.

And she never shies away from answering. “People still ask me about it to this day, even on this team so it’s great,” Horley told this daily before the World Cup. “I love it when it’s brought up. It was an experience that I was very grateful to have that a lot of people didn’t have the opportunity to do that. It’s going to be fun to see Pez around the hotel. I was a very young child at that point, but different now,” she added.

Starting with the domestic setup in New South Wales, Horley took a decision to represent her mother’s heritage through the Scotland national team. Despite not knowing the players, it didn’t take her a lot of time to find a bond with her Scotland teammates.

“The moment I first saw the girls in that first training it was a great feeling. I met Rachel Slater first who was the best person to meet in that instance because it was just going to be so relaxed and we got along well.

It is an amazing group to be a part of and everyone’s so welcoming to new girls and it’s a really good group,” Horley cannot stop smiling while talking about her teammates.