Many wouldn’t be knowing this but a former Derbyshire & Somerset player in the 90’s, Andy Cottam has been in charge of Indonesia Women’s National Cricket team for over a year now. Indonesia have won Silver in the 2017 SEA Games and recently finished third in the recently concluded ASEAN Women’s T20 Cup in Thailand under his guidance.
Indonesia finished 3rd behind Thailand Women and Tanzania Women in the ASEAN Women’s T20 Cup also featuring teams from Bhutan, Malaysia & Hong Kong as well.
Champion -Thailand Women
Runner Up -Tanzania Women #aseanwomensT20 #thailand #tanzania pic.twitter.com/ARLvXLCxf4— Cricket Thailand (@ThailandCricket) March 13, 2018
What is more surprising is that Andy does all this without charging a penny from Indonesia Cricket Association. Yes, he does this for free and out of pure commitment to serve Indonesia Women cricketers and develop them to achieve better results in the future as it goes along.
Sent to Indonesia by ICC after he acquired his International Coaching License, Andy got interested in the system and offered his services to handle the Cricket operations without getting paid, as his salary was not affordable by the Associations. Andy has been living off his own savings and targets to develop players for the future who could play in overseas competitions or leagues.
Absence of an International standard Stadium/Ground has been a major hindrance in the growth of the sport in the country and hopefully, it will see the light in the near future till he stays with the team.
While such endeavours are not heard of often, the road does look good for the Indonesian women’s team players, who have slowly progressing in the regional tournament. What will definitely would have been disappointing new for Andy is that Asian Cricket Council is not organising any qualifier tournament for Women’s Asia Cup in 2018 with Thailand being the automatic entry on the basis of their qualification for ICC Women’s WorldT20 Global qualifiers in 2018.
