Kiwi cricket start Katie Perkins shares how God has worked in her life through cricket.
1) How have you ended up playing cricket?It was my mum's family that got me hooked on cricket. My granddad would practice with me wherever we went, my cousins and I would play backyard cricket as long as there was daylight, and my uncle owned a sports shop so every Christmas and Birthday meant a new piece of cricket gear!
I fell in love with the game and no other sport has ever matched how much I enjoy the challenge of cricket. I 3) Is women's cricket going in the right direction?
Absolutely. The money that is being invested in the development of the game in Australia and England in particular is forcing other countries, including New Zealand, to sit up and take action as well.
The ICC International Women's Championship, the Aussie Women's Big Bash League starting this summer and the recently announced Women's Cricket Super League in England make it an exciting time to be involved in the game. 5) You represent your country, so surely being a Christian cricketer is easy?
When I first started playing senior women's cricket as a young teenager I really struggled with some aspects of the environment that conflicted so much with my faith based values and beliefs. Over time though I 'grew up' and realised that the sheltered world I had grown up in wasn't the world's reality. The world is not perfect, and neither am I, so I learnt that I had no right to judge others and must first and foremost respect them for who they are.
When cricket started to encroach on my Sunday church attendance mum didn't like this much, but another member of our church said to us "God needs Christian's on the cricket field too." This was a major 'light bulb' moment for me and made me very excited... Not just that it gave me a really good excuse to go and play cricket, but it opened my eyes to the opportunity I have in all aspects of life to influence others and display God's love through my actions. I'm blessed to play in teams that have great team culture and are fundamentally based on an acceptance and respect of everyone else. My teammates respect the faith I have and I respect the fact that many of them don't share that faith. I don't feel it is my place to then force my beliefs onto them, but simply work hard to display the behaviour that is most honorable to God. And oh my goodness, I do not always get this right! At the end of the day I am competitive to my core and to display God's love when I've just got out or done something stupid in the field is one of my biggest challenges!! 7) Which bible verse/passage is God talking to you at the moment?The Bible verse that has become my cricketing mantra is 2 Timothy 1:7 -"For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self discipline."Every game I play you will see the words POWER, LOVE, SELF DISCIPLINE written on my left forearm.The fear of failure has, and will always be, something that I will battle with as a cricketer and that is why this verse is so empowering to me.
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2) Who is the best player you have played against?
When playing in our Domestic competition back home in New Zealand then no doubt the best player is Suzie Bates. She is an outstanding all rounder whose leadership is inspirational.
Internationally, Australian captain Meg Lanning is one of the best batters in the game. She scores freely and at a great rate. It's scary how much talent she has! 4) Have you always been a Christian and how did you come to faith?I grew up going to church and there was always a strong Christian influence on my life through my family. However, it wasn't until I was 15 years old that I became a Christian myself.
It happened one day in church as I was sitting there trying to decide what I actually believed in... I felt I knew who God was meant to be, but I didn't actually know him myself. In the weeks leading up to that morning I had been doing a Bible study with a close friend about understanding who God is. This had challenged me and forced me to think deeper about what faith, if any, I had. That morning in church I was simply sitting by myself and prayed to God that I wanted to follow Him and live my life for His glory. The emotion that then came over me is something I'll never forget. Adrenaline began racing through my body and my hands wouldn't stop shaking. The fire inside of me was set alight that day. 6) Best bit of advice you have received? (For your faith and then your cricket)To play cricket for New Zealand was my dream. Ever since picking up a bat as a three year old there was nothing else I wanted more in life. I made all the age group rep teams and eventually debuted for my domestic team, the Auckland Hearts, in January 2007. The problem was that over the next few years my ultimate goal of being selected for New Zealand suffocated me as I tried too hard and thought too much. Success felt good but failure felt like the end of the world. My self worth was based on how many runs I had scored in my most recent match and my mood dictated by a win or a loss.
The 2010/11 season was my toughest ever. I had come back from an ACL reconstruction and felt like this was the year to stamp my mark on the Domestic scene. What happened was the opposite. The love I showed to myself was performance based only, and after the season started badly the additional pressure and negative self talk I drowned myself in spiraled out of control. In the end I was dropped from our playing 11 for our last round of the season. I felt at rock bottom and never so far away from my White Ferns dream than I was then. The off-season that followed turned my whole life around. My best friend at the time knew the struggles I was dealing with and began challenging me about where God was in my cricket. The truth was, He wasn't there. Cricket had become, or maybe always had been, my god. That winter there was a lot of soul searching and prayer as I tussled with the possible reality that I may never reach my White Ferns dream, and if I didn't then how was I still going to be able to love and respect myself. It was a terribly scary and painful process, but before the 2011/12 season arrived I had let go of the goal of playing cricket for the White Ferns and given my game over God. Well then what happened!? I played the best, most consistent cricket I had ever played and realised my life long dream later that summer when I made my New Zealand debut against Australia. I was now ready for international cricket. |