KIRSTIE’S KEEN ON TRENT BRIDGE
Blaze Skipper Talks to NCLS
The delight and enthusiasm that The Blaze skipper Kirstie Gordon shows in her adopted cricket ‘home’ of Trent Bridge may at first seem slightly at odds with her decision to revert to playing for Scotland, rather than England.
But, as she explained to the February meeting of Nottingham Cricket Lovers Society (NCLS), “it felt like the right time to make the switch back”.
Kirstie was born in Aberdeen and – despite having football as her first love as a child – learned her cricket there. “As much as I loved football”, she said, “I was never going to compete with the boys when it came to playing; but when I got into cricket, I found that playing with and against the boys was an advantage”.
She was playing for the local Huntly club, a rare but significant outlier for cricket in Scotland at that time, and felt that having to compete with boys made her ‘toughen up’.
“I soon learned that I couldn’t bowl fast enough to compete and converted into a spinner”, she recalled.
Her progress was such that at thirteen she was playing age group cricket and when she went for a trial for the Scotland under-17s, was immediately invited to join the full Scotland squad. So she made her international debut at just fourteen!
She had also represented the North of Scotland at football and tennis but cricket became her route to a life in professional sport.
From 2012-2017, she played for Scotland and remembered the struggles of those early days. “We had members of the squad driving the mini-bus”, she told NCLS, “and at weekends there might be an eight-hour drive to a game and back (they were playing mainly English county teams).
“It was all exciting for a young girl like me but it was tough on the older ones who might have work on Monday after travelling, playing and travelling again at the weekend”.
That experience was influential in her decision to move South to pursue a degree and to take advantage of the sporting facilities at Loughborough University. “I could have gone somewhere else for my degree”, Kirstie recalled, “but the standard of the facilities, the support and the opportunities at Loughborough were what decided me on the move”.
Once at Loughborough, she was selected for the Lightning, the first professional women’s cricket team in the East Midlands and, somewhat reluctantly, made the decision to qualify for England.
“It wasn’t an easy decision and I quite understand that a lot of my former team-mates in Scotland found it hard to take”, she added.
“But at that time, there was no professional pathway in Scotland and I felt that to progress and to succeed, I needed to make the switch”.
It certainly paid off and in 2018, Kirstie Gordon was in the England squad for the ICC Women’s World Twenty20 tournament – to her surprise. “I had been training with the squad but thought of myself as a useful net bowler and didn’t expect to be picked.
So much so that on the day the squad was announced, she didn’t even have her phone turned on. “When I did switch it on and got the call…well, I can’t tell you what I said!”, she joked.
In July 2019, she was selected for the one-off Women’s Ashes Test against Australia and in November that year travelled with England for a tour of Pakistan. She was also playing for Nottinghamshire Women at that time.
In 2021 she signed a professional contract with Loughborough Lightning, having been the leading wicket taker in that season’s Rachel Heyhoe Flint Trophy. In April 2023, the left arm spinner was announced as captain of The Blaze, the new name for The Lightning.
At the start of the 2025 season, it was announced that The Blaze was to become part of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club and that Trent Bridge would be their home base.
“It’s absolutely a positive [for the women’s game], and it’s a credit to everyone at Trent Bridge for making that happen,” she said.
“I absolutely love playing at Trent Bridge, and I’m fortunate to lead the girls out, so I’m looking forward to that.
“The girls are super pleased about it, and every time we’ve played at Trent Bridge, we’ve loved it. We were a bit unlucky last year with rain, but we’re hoping the sun shines this time round!”
Kirstie will combine her leadership of The Blaze with her cricket for Scotland, having decided in December last year to re-commit to her homeland.
“I’ve been out of action with a stress fracture”, she said, “but for the first time in a couple of years, I feel fully fit and raring to go – whether here at Trent Bridge for The Blaze or in international cricket with Scotland”.
She has also added another skill to her talents, working as a summariser for cricket commentaries and will be part of the Test Match Special team covering the Men’s T20 World Cup in 2026.
Nottingham Cricket Lovers Society meets monthly in the close season, usually on the third Thursday of each month. Membership for the 2025/26 season is £20, joint membership £30 and visitors £10 per session.
Most meetings are held in the evening; the next – 5 March 2026 – will start at 7pm, meeting in the Press Box in the Radcliffe Road stand at Trent Bridge
The full programme of meetings and visiting speakers is available on the NCLS website - https://nottinghamcricketlovers.co.uk/
February 2026