Young Sparks run free

ELIZABETH BOTCHERBY: From sleepy phone calls with Laura MacLeod to Liverpool FC and lacrosse, meet Issy Wong and Milly Home – the future of Central Sparks

In round seven of the LV= Insurance County Championship, Darren Stevens threatened to break the internet with an age-defying 190 for Kent against Glamorgan.

A few days later, retired England international Arran Brindle shared a 143-run stand with her son for Owmby CC Trojans in the Lincoln and District League.

A week prior, 1973 Cricket World Cup winner Enid Bakewell had created a social media storm after being filmed playing club cricket aged 80. It was fortnight where experience firmly triumphed over youth.

However, at Central Sparks they are undergoing something of a youth revolution, led by 19-year-old Issy Wong and 20-year-old Milly Home.

The duo, whose combined age still leaves them six years short of the 45-year-old Stevens, are chalk and cheese.

^{Milly Home (L) and Issy Wong (R) in action for Central Sparks in 2020}

Wong is a pace bowling sensation who dreams of pushing the speed gun beyond 80mph, Home is a swash-buckling opening bat.

Wong holds a professional contract and is on the fringes of the England team, Home balances her promising sporting career with studying for an undergraduate degree in finance and management at the University of Birmingham.

Wong stumbled into cricket by accident, an after-school session unearthing a future star. Home hails from a family of cricket lovers and has the sport in her blood.

However, one thing unites the rising stars: they were both asleep when Central Sparks’ director of cricket, Laura MacLeod, phoned through their contract offers last summer.

"I got the call on my 18th birthday, although I don’t think she knew it was my birthday!" laughs Wong. "Laura said she had these contracts coming up and she might be giving me one and I thought, 'this isn’t a bad present!' Then I went downstairs, had my breakfast and really enjoyed my day after that.

"It all happened so quickly. From the retainer contract to finishing school, there was so much going on and I don’t think it really sunk in at the time how cool it was. I finished school and I was a professional cricketer."

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"I was in bed and she woke me up," echoes Home. "I’ll never forgive her!

"I got off the phone and my dad asked who I’d been speaking to and I said Laura MacLeod, saying something about Central Sparks. He said, 'do you not remember?' and I said she woke me up! He called me an idiot and said I should probably clarify what she’d said."

Cricket is very much a family affair in the Home household. Both her dad and older brother Charlie represented Shropshire at Minor Counties level while younger brother Jack is currently in the Worcestershire academy. Charlie also played age-group cricket for Northamptonshire as a teenager.

"My mum’s into horse riding and my dad’s into cricket, and we turned into a cricketing family," explains Home, who attended her first soft-ball session aged nine. "My dad’s played club cricket with all of us at one stage and we still play garden cricket now, we played it just the other day actually."

Who’s the best cricketer of the family? "Probably the little one – but I wouldn’t say that to his face! He doesn’t need that."

However, it’s not just with bat and ball that she excels. Home is also a promising lacrosse player, representing England at the 2019 Under-19 Lacrosse World Cup in Canada and the Under-20 European Championships in Poland, and continues to balance her commitments with England’s Under-23 side with her cricket career, and, of course, her second year exams.

"I do have to be organised – the first game of the cricket season is straight after my last exam," she admits. "My schedule is carnage – lecture, gym, go for a run, do some cricket, pass my degree, and also chill out a bit because otherwise I’d go insane!

"Covid has helped a bit this year because I haven’t been able to play lacrosse, it’s not classed as an elite sport. I’ve been able to focus on cricket for the first time ever! But I enjoy playing both.

"People always ask which sport I prefer, and I never answer. I enjoy having both sports because they’re so different. Lacrosse is meant to be the fastest sport on two legs while cricket is so skilful and mentally taxing. In cricket, you make one mistake, and your day is ruined. With lacrosse, if you drop the ball, you have another go. When you score a century, there’s no better feeling, but the adrenalin you get from lacrosse is unreal."

And let’s not forget her junior days as an indoor climbing phenom, attending Team GB training camps up to the age of 11. "I still climb," Home confesses. "There’s an indoor gym near me and it’s really good for strength. But I only do bouldering now with giant crash mats - they’re the fun ones - because I don’t really like heights!"

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Wong, by contrast, prefers to be a spectator when she’s not got a ball in her hand. Aside from having a great-uncle who opened the bowling for Hong Kong decades before she was born, her family has few connections to cricket, instead preferring football – they are die-hard Liverpool fans – and NBA.

"My dad took me to my first Liverpool game when I was six months old," she reveals. "I was wrapped in his coat during the game, so it wasn’t really my decision. It’s what we all get really passionate about. The other day when Alisson scored, we were running around like a bunch of loons and crying at his interview because it showed the passion that sport can bring to you.

"Liverpool has such a special place in my heart, it feels like one massive family. Whether you’re in the away end, the Kop, the main stand, you feel like everyone there has your back and there’s not many feelings like that.

"And basketball, we watched the Nets against the Golden State Warriors in Brooklyn maybe five years ago, and I took to the Warriors. It was the year they had Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant as the bulk of their side – Curry is an absolute wizard! I got into the video game in the last couple of years and play that far too much."

It’s not always easy balancing her two loves - "I’ve missed two Champions League finals because I was playing cricket. My family went to Kiev and Madrid and I was watching at home with my Grandma and Grandad. Hopefully, we’ll get to another soon and I’ll be able to go!" - but she knows having alternative interests is integral to her success both on and off the field.

^{Home playing Lacrosse for England at the U19 World Cup in Canada}

"I love sport and watching sports that aren’t cricket is a good thing," says Wong. "It’s a good switch off but also you look at the behaviours of Curry or Henderson or Rashford. They’re athletes, role models, they’re putting the hours in and they’re at the top of their game, but they’re also making a massive difference off the court or off the pitch.

"If I can be a little bit like them then it doesn’t matter how good I am at cricket, I’ll be a half-decent human being."

Turning her attention back to cricket, Wong admits last season was a steep learning curve. She took three wickets in three appearances for Sparks, a pleasing return for the teenager, but more importantly, learned a valuable lesson about her own expectations and the pressures of her professional status.

"I’m happy with the progression I made last summer," she says. "Three games in a summer isn’t a massive amount but if you look at the difference between the first game – not my worst game but it went belly up – and two days later at Thunder and the last game against Lightning, I think I grew up quite a lot as a cricketer. The stats don’t look fantastic but there’s a lot more to it.

"In the first game of the season against Diamonds, I put a lot of pressure on myself – 'you’re 18, you’ve got a retainer, you’re one of the only ones to have one' – and I thought people were expecting me to do well because I was getting paid for it. I didn’t have a great game.

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"Reflecting on it afterwards with my coach, he was really clear to me: you’re 18, no one’s expecting you to be perfect. Once I’d got my head around that, everything became a lot clearer. We had a warm-up game recently and I felt so comfortable because I knew no one was expecting perfection and the guys and the coaches back me and my skills. It gives me the freedom to go out and perform.

"There’s no expectation on me to nail every ball as long as I’m learning and getting better. There was pressure initially but having those conversations and working it out in my head means I feel no pressure and I can enjoy cricket."

And enjoy cricket she has. In February, Wong travelled with the England team on their white-ball tour of New Zealand, not to play, but to watch, train and learn from the players she will one day replace in the international set-up – an enviable pre-season training scenario.

"It was remarkable," Wong gushes. "I don’t think I’ve got a bad word to say about the whole trip; as a young cricketer to be around those guys, learning from them and trying to be a sponge – it was massive.

"There were some really senior members of the squad and to be able to tap into their knowledge was amazing. Sharing a net with Katherine Brunt who’s been an international cricketer pretty much as long as I’ve been alive, every game I can remember her and Anya [Shrubsole] have been the bowling attack, so being around those two is just… wow. I’m so fortunate Lisa [Keightley] gave me the opportunity."

^{Wong on tour with England in New Zealand}

Home’s pre-season, by contrast, has been more modest, but no less successful.

After scoring just 19 runs in four appearances in 2020 and finding opportunities at the top of the order limited, she opted to go on loan to Worcestershire for the Women’s County Championship season to prove her worth. She returned to Sparks with 168 runs in four appearances, a high score of 88 from 63 deliveries, and confidence anew.

"Last season was good. Even though I didn’t get that many runs, it was a nice experience," Home says. "I’ve had a whole winter of netting; I’ve sorted a few things out with my guard and posted some really good scores, so hopefully I’ll get picked this year.

"Runs are your currency in cricket. I play for Warwickshire, but I had a think and chatted to the coach and said, 'you’ve got three contracted batters so the highest I’m going to bat is four' and asked if I could go to Worcestershire, who are in the same division, and hopefully bat in the top three – and they let me open! It was a really good move and great to put myself out there for Sparks.

"I’d love to bat top three this season. We have three contracted players in the top three and when Amy Jones comes back, I’ll let her take top four! But I just have to keep scoring runs and hopefully it will come."

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Listening to Wong and Home speak, it’s easy to forget how young they are – not seasoned cricketers with years of experience but two youthful players, one taking her first tentative steps into professional sport, the other balancing high-level cricket and lacrosse with the pressures of earning a degree.

However, beneath the maturity which belies their youth, their ambitions for the season are remarkably simple.

"I’m just looking forward to getting out and playing," says Wong. "It’s going to be a massive summer. Last year I played three matches but this year with Rachael Heyhoe Flint, the T20s and The Hundred – I don’t think I’ve had a season where I’ve played that much cricket!"

For Home, it’s playing in front of a crowd: "It’s really exciting. Even my uni friends are like, 'when are you playing?' because they want to come and watch. Imagine a uni barmy army – I’ll pretend I don’t know them!"

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