It’s August 2024 in Marsa, Malta, and Ana Mesarovic has just been handed her international debut cap as Serbia prepare to face the Isle of Man.
The pitch is far removed from the grounds Ana is used to playing on back home in Yorkshire. Serbia are bowled out for 62 and suffer a 205-run defeat. But among the difficult debut was a performance to remember. Ana took two wickets and the top-score for her side with an unbeaten 35.
Fast forward to today and Ana, now 34, has ten international caps to her name and is a key all-rounder for the Serbian Women’s Cricket Team.
What makes her story particularly remarkable is that cricket wasn’t even on her radar until her late 20s.
As part of our Lacuna Players Spotlight series, we caught up with Ana to hear how she found the game, the unexpected Instagram message that led to international cricket, and why she’s now determined to help make the pathway into women’s cricket easier for the next generation.
Finding Cricket In Later Life
Ana had always been sporty growing up, but cricket came much later.
“I got into cricket very, very late,” she says, recalling back to her late 20s. “I needed a hobby and went up to my local cricket club to watch a men’s game. I started playing softball for the team up the road and then did well in that.”
Taking naturally to the game, Ana soon began playing for the men’s team at the club. But her experience wasn’t always an easy one.
“I started playing for the men’s team for that club but it wasn’t the same response I had from the women’s. It was very, very different, quite sort of sexist,” she explained. “It could put many people off but I just thought, well, I’ll see how it goes so I kept playing, kept trying.”
A friend in Leeds suggested Cockeridge CC, and Ana made the journey to play men’s evening league cricket there. The welcome was very different. “They were fantastic,” she said. “It was the opposite and the kind of welcome I was after.”
That experience helped Ana continue developing her game through English club cricket and eventually opened a door she hadn’t even considered.
An Unexpected Call-Up
After a few years of honing her skills, Ana received a message that would change the direction of her cricket. “I got an Instagram message from the Serbia Federation, which I thought was a bit bizarre,” she laughed. “They saw that I’ve obviously got a Serbian last name and they just wanted to know a bit about me.”
Ana’s grandfather is Serbian, but playing international cricket for the country had never crossed her mind.
“I remember being sat in the car park of an industrial estate on a freezing cold December night, pitch black in my car calling them. They invited me over for the March 2024 Men’s training camp so I went on that.”
Just eight months after that cold December night, Ana found herself in a much warmer Malta, walking out onto the international stage.
The Reality Of International Cricket
The opportunity has been hugely rewarding, but Ana is also keen to offer a reality check.
Playing international cricket for Serbia is self-funded, must fit around her full time job and comes with expectations that aren’t always matched by the resources available. “I feel that because of my age, it’s been a massive barrier to then get somewhere locally here at home to play for a county and get support and training.”
Resources can be stretched at club level, while even in Tier 2 and Tier 3 county cricket, support staff and resources aren’t always readily available. But rather than putting Ana off, the challenges have pushed her to keep going.
“I think when you’re good at something or okay at something, you want to do it more and more. When I found out that I was good, it kind of gave me a bit of a push to keep going, even though it has been really challenging.”
International cricket has brought its own challenges, too.
“The international stuff has been hard. I’m the only overseas player. They have an hour long meeting in Serbian and then they come and tell me the updates in English.”
Not speaking Serbian naturally creates challenges, but so too do the very different playing conditions Ana has encountered across Europe.
The pitches in Belgrade, Serbia and Sofia, Bulgaria have been a world away from the grounds she is accustomed to in Yorkshire, with uneven turf, mole holes, sticks, stones and other hazards to contend with.
“There’s also a very big difference between club cricket rules and how umpires let things slide and obviously ICC rules,” she said.
It’s something Ana has had to adapt to quickly, including dealing with struggles around her bowling and being taken off for repeated no-balls.
Creating A Better Women’s Cricket Pathway
Back in Yorkshire, Ana is now giving something back to the game as a coach, working to improve the pathway for girls coming through.
After completing her Level 2 coaching qualification, she saw a gap between softball and women’s hardball cricket, particularly for girls aged 11 to 16.
“I did my Level 2 coaching a couple of years ago because where I lived there was such a big gap,” she explained. “You’ve got softball and then you’ve got women’s hardball. I thought, what about the 11 to 16-year-old girls. I set up a hardball team so that they had a way to get into it from softball that wasn’t with the women.”
For Ana, that transition remains one of the areas where the game can do more.
“I think personally that step from softball to hardball is too big still. I think for some people like me, who are probably a bit crazy, I’m kind of like, well, this is a challenge. I’ll go with it.”
“For a lot of girls that aren’t particularly sporty and they’ve only done softball, I feel that there still needs to be a middle ground. I don’t know what that would look like but it’s too much of a leap and I think that’s where you’re going to get a drop off.”
It’s a perspective shaped by her own unconventional route into the game. Ana knows what it feels like to discover cricket later, to find her place within it and to keep going when the pathway isn’t always obvious.
Now, she’s helping make that pathway a little clearer for the girls coming next.
Still Playing, Still Contributing
With a few recurring injuries, Ana isn’t sure how much longer she’ll continue playing cricket herself. But for now, there’s still international cricket to look forward to with Serbia.
Whatever comes next, her contribution to the game extends well beyond her own playing career. From representing Serbia on the international stage to coaching young players in Yorkshire and helping create opportunities for girls who might otherwise fall through the gap.
That feels like the perfect fit for the Lacuna Players series: celebrating the women who wear Lacuna, but also the different ways they contribute to, shape and push women’s cricket forward.
