Nass­er Khan

Crick­et is very much in the fore­front these days with the men's Aus­tralian crick­et team com­pet­ing in our var­i­ous is­lands. Not to be over­shad­owed, our women crick­eters have been do­ing us very proud on the re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­els. This se­ries fea­tured T&T's and West In­dies' cap­tain Meris­sa Aguillera in an ear­li­er in­stal­ment. To­day, we get per­son­al with an­oth­er of our crick­et­ing stars, Anisa Mo­hammed.Lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly T&T's 23-year-old Anisa Mo­hammed has been mes­meris­ing fel­low women crick­eters with her be­guil­ing right hand off-spin bowl­ing for many a year. Since 2003 she has been the Trinidad and To­ba­go's Women's Crick­eter of the Year for an un­prece­dent­ed six times as well as the nom­i­nee in those years for the First Cit­i­zens Sports­woman of the Year award. A reg­u­lar mem­ber of the T&T and West In­dies squads since 2003, she holds many records on the world stage in­clud­ing:

• "Most Wick­ets" in T20 In­ter­na­tion­als (51),

• "Best Fig­ures in an in­nings by a Cap­tain" in T20 In­ter­na­tion­al (Male/Fe­male) (4-9 in 3.2overs),

• "Most Four Wick­ets hauls in an in­nings in a ca­reer" in T20 In­ter­na­tion­al (5),

• Cur­rent­ly the on­ly per­son in the world with "Con­sec­u­tive Four Wick­ets hauls in an in­nings" in T20 in­ter­na­tion­als (4-26 and 4-9),

• First West In­di­an to claim five wick­ets in a T20 match,

• First West In­di­an to claim 50 wick­ets in One Day In­ter­na­tion­al,

• First West In­di­an to claim 50 wick­ets in T20 In­ter­na­tion­al,

• "Most wick­ets by a West In­di­an" in ODI In­ter­na­tion­al (78) and

• "Most Wick­ets in a se­ries by a West In­di­an" in ODI In­ter­na­tion­al (14).

Anisa has rep­re­sent­ed the West In­dies women's crick­et team in the 2005 and 2009 World Cup/ODI, in the 2009 and 2010 World T20, and in ODI se­ries against In­dia, Pak­istan, Ire­land, Hol­land, Eng­land, Sri Lan­ka and South Africa. She is a qual­i­fied Lev­el 1 WICB coach. In 2010 her na­tion­al team was award­ed the Hum­ming Bird Sil­ver medal for their con­tin­ued ex­cel­lence in the sport. Lo­cal­ly she is the cap­tain of her team, MAAAD, which she loves telling the sto­ry stands for Melis­sa, Al­isa, Al­i­son, Anisa and Dan­ny..."Melis­sa is the pres­i­dent's sis­ter-in-law, Al­isa is my sis­ter, Al­i­son is my moth­er's cousin who is the pres­i­dent, Anisa of course is me, and Dan­ny is the man­ag­er." A re­cent car ac­ci­dent in which she sus­tained mi­nor in­juries did not pre­vent her from tak­ing part in the Windies train­ing camp in Bar­ba­dos.

Q: When, where and against whom did you play your first game for T&T and for the West In­dies?

A: I played my first game for T&T in 2003 in Grena­da against Grena­da. I played my first game for the West In­dies in 2003 in Hol­land against Japan.

What else would you be if you weren't a crick­eter?

I would prob­a­bly be a phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion teacher.

Where were you born and where did you grow up?

I was born at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal and I grew up at Maraj Hill, Coalmine. Do you know where that is (smil­ing)? It's a small vil­lage near San­gre Grande.

Who were the peo­ple who have in­flu­enced you the most (both in­side and out­side of your im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly as ap­plic­a­ble), in your ca­reer and in life in gen­er­al, and how did they?

All the mem­bers of my fam­i­ly and close friends have al­ways been ex­treme­ly sup­port­ive. I was in­tro­duced to the game through my par­ents who both played the game at club lev­el.

Tell us about your in­spi­ra­tion to do what you do. What would you say and what ad­vice would you give to any­one hop­ing to play the sport at your lev­el?

Crick­et al­lows me to rep­re­sent 1.3 mil­lion peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go and mil­lions of oth­ers in the West In­dies. This in­spires me to al­ways do my best-If you have the tal­ent you must have the dri­ve and dis­ci­pline.

Who was your hero grow­ing up and why? And who do you ad­mire most to­day?

Hm­mm, for­mer Aus­tralian cap­tain Steve Waugh. He was such a good all rounder, a fight­er and an in­spi­ra­tional cap­tain. To­day, for­mer West In­dies and Trinidad Cap­tain Stephanie Pow­er. She pos­sess­es lead­er­ship qual­i­ties; she is al­ways will­ing to learn; open to oth­ers' opin­ion; and takes ad­vice from oth­ers.

At what schools/in­sti­tu­tions did you re­ceive your ed­u­ca­tion?

Pri­ma­ry school-San­gre Grande Hin­du School; Sec­ondary-SWA­HA Hin­du Col­lege; Ter­tiary-School of Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies.

What is your most mem­o­rable crick­et­ing per­for­mance?

Sev­en wick­ets for 14 runs against Pak­istan in the fi­nals of the World Cup qual­i­fi­er. That game de­ter­mined our rank­ing and who we would play in the 2013 World Cup.

What was your first job and is crick­et your full time job now? If not what else do you do for a liv­ing?

My first job was teach­ing. I was a pri­ma­ry school teacher for ap­prox­i­mate­ly eight months. Af­ter that I be­came a full time crick­eter since I am a con­tract play­er with the WIBC.

If you had to in­ter­view some­one from Trinidad and To­ba­go who you did not know and had to ask just one ques­tion, who would it be and what would be the one ques­tion?

Anya Ay­oung Chee and I would ask her what mo­ti­vates her.

What ad­vice would you give to the young peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go?

Con­sis­ten­cy is very im­por­tant whether you are in acad­e­mia or sports. Go af­ter your dreams and be­lieve that noth­ing is im­pos­si­ble.

What dai­ly mot­to/cre­do do you live by and in three words, your recipe for suc­cess?

Live, love, laugh.

What is your great­est ac­com­plish­ment in crick­et?

Be­ing the first West In­di­an to claim 50 wick­ets in both ODI and T20 match­es.

When and how did you get in­to play­ing crick­et?

Both my par­ents were in­volved in crick­et, there­fore from a young age my sis­ter and I were ex­posed to the sport.

Who is your favourite ath­lete out­side of crick­et?

I re­al­ly like and ad­mire Rafael Nadal, the ten­nis play­er. He is so fo­cused and de­ter­mined, kin­da like me! (laugh­ing)

Any oth­er sportsper­sons in your fam­i­ly?

My twin sis­ter, Al­isa and my twin broth­ers Ash­meed and Ash­meer.

Of all your ac­co­lades, prizes and awards which do you rate as ex­treme­ly spe­cial?

Be­ing named one of the ten top ath­letes of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

What goals and or am­bi­tions do you still have?

To be the num­ber one bowler in the world.

What is your favourite pas­time/hob­by out­side of crick­et?

Spend­ing time with friends and fam­i­ly, ta­bles ten­nis and play­ing cards.

De­scribe your­self in one word.

Am­bi­tious.

What do you plan to do af­ter your crick­et play­ing days are over?

Start my own busi­ness; have not de­cid­ed what it's go­ing to be as yet.

Be­ing in the pub­lic eye what would you like peo­ple to know about you that they prob­a­bly don't know or are prob­a­bly mis­in­formed about....ie what do peo­ple gen­er­al­ly not know about you?

I am a shopa­holic (laugh­ing out).