CHENNAI: The saying often goes, "Love is patient. Love is kind."
If that love involves uncertainties and unscripted drama of sport, it's hardly kind for the patient ones. Kind or not, the love and passion for sport makes one do things that some may consider lunatic. But if you want to help a sport emerge, someone has to be a little lunatic to get things done. Two women in Brazil — Marta Vieira da Silva and Roberta de Melo Moretti-Avery — lived by this love and lunacy for years just to see their respective sport, football and cricket, get better in their country.
Women's sport received the sedative when the nation elected Jair Bolsonaro in 2019, which led to the disbanding of the Ministry of Culture. The subsidies provided by the ministry were vital for women players, in lieu of the national contracts. The 2019 World Cup saw Brazil field the oldest squad. After losing to hosts France, Marta pleaded to the next generation to save Brazilian women's football. "There is not going to be a Marta forever. The women's game depends on you to survive. Think about it. Value it more. Cry in the beginning so you can smile in the end," she said holding back tears.
If Marta gave the next generation the female role model they never had in football, Roberta became the "Big Mom" of the national cricket team. After working in England, she returned to Brazil with her husband, who introduced her to cricket. Once she and Brasil Cricket took cricket seriously, the struggles followed. “They could not afford their kits, and uniforms, they hadn’t even travelled past the state, leave alone the country. We would do yard sales, clothing sales, sell chocolates at traffic lights, and raffles," Roberta told this daily in March.
"We made a plan as a group like ‘you make the chocolate, you are responsible for the money, we are going to sell this, that.' We worked together to make this happen. We remember that. They played not only for the shirt or for the country but they played to remember how hard they had to work for it."
In 2018, Brazil played their first-ever T20I. Two years later, in 2020, Cricket Brasil became the first associate nation to give central contracts to women before the men. Roberta led the side throughout this, keeping them hungry for more. The cricket world loved the Brazilians who played their game with determination and celebrated alongside their opponents no matter the result. The songs and dance became the routine and they were the joy of any tournament they were part of.
