Rainford-Brent represented England 29 times and was part of the team which won the Women’s World Cup and the World T20 title in 2009.
However, her early experiences on cricket’s pathways after being spotted at primary school were “quite challenging” because she “didn’t feel like I fitted in” as a young black girl from southeast London largely playing with and against children from more affluent backgrounds.
“I was excited that you could see there was a path of something exciting ahead by representing your county,” she said.
“But there was a lot of stages where I realised quite quickly when I moved into cricket I was quite different to the girls that I was playing with. Other kids had been getting one-to-ones [coaching] from aged eight.
“My first cricket bat we bought in Brixton for £5. I think it was from like the 1950s and someone had just got rid of it in a garden sale, and I used that through to playing junior England.”
Rainford-Brent said she had to deal with comments about her hair, negative reactions to her mother’s Jamaican food and initially found cricket a “different world” where “there wasn’t diversity”, which made forging a career a battle.
“The early days it was ignorance or misunderstanding. Then I had to deal with some environments where there was more explicit stuff around things that affected training,” she explained.
“The hardest bit is then being – ‘if I challenge this, I’m going to lose my spot or my place?’ If I had challenged things I don’t think it would have worked out well. In some ways, I wish I was more vocal and took on the system.”
In a wide-ranging discussion with Desert Island Discs presenter Lauren Laverne, Rainford-Brent also talked about the impact of her brother being stabbed to death when she was five, and how her mother worked night shifts to support her cricketing dreams.
She also touches on the African Caribbean Engagement (ACE) charity she established four years ago.
The programme aims to re-engage young people of African and Caribbean heritage with cricket and address a significant decline in the number of black professional players in the sport.
“To see so many young people chase their dreams, but also in a supportive environment has been really special,” said Rainford-Brent.
Listen to Ebony Rainford-Brent on Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4 and via BBC Sounds at 10:00 GMT on 8 December.
