Maryam Omar facts for kids

Maryam Osama Khalil Omar (born 8 March 1993) is a talented engineer and cricketer from Kuwait. She plays for the Kuwait women's national cricket team. Maryam is a right-handed batter and bowls right-arm off-break. This means she is an all-rounder, good at both batting and bowling. She has also been the captain of her national team. Maryam was born and grew up in Kuwait, but she is of Palestinian background. She studied in a Pakistani school in Kuwait and later in Melbourne, Australia, where she lives now.

Maryam's Early Life and Education

Growing Up in Kuwait

Maryam Omar was born in Kuwait to her parents, Salwa and Osama. She has three sisters: Amal, Zuhoor, and Budoor. From a young age, Maryam loved sports. She tried many different activities like basketball, gymnastics, judo, martial arts, and swimming. She says her father's love for swimming really influenced her. She even competed in swimming tournaments. Her mother also helped her become strong, and Maryam earned a black belt in karate because of her mother's encouragement.

In 2010, when Maryam was 17, she discovered cricket at her Pakistani school in Kuwait. The national cricket board was looking for girls to play. "My sports teacher told me that Kuwait Cricket needed girls for the Under-19 Asia Cup," Maryam said. "I asked, 'What is cricket?'" Her mother encouraged her, saying she might even make the national team. Maryam joined and was the only Arab girl on the team. She thought learning the game might be hard, but the coaches were very supportive. Soon, she loved cricket so much that she stopped playing other sports.

When Maryam started playing cricket, her first name, Maryam, caused a small problem. It is a very common name in the Arab world. So many other players had the same name that when someone called "Maryam," many heads would turn! To solve this, Maryam chose a unique nickname: "MOKO." This nickname comes from the first letters of her full name. Her favorite shirt number is 25, which she believes is her lucky number.

Maryam faced two main challenges when she started cricket. First, cricket is not often talked about in the Arab world. Even though it's popular in Kuwait, many people there are expats (people living in a country that is not their home country) from countries where cricket is huge. When Maryam began, her parents had never even heard of cricket. Maryam herself didn't fully understand the rules or how big the sport was. However, her coaches, Tariq Rasool and Tahir Khan, taught her everything. They even told her to watch cricket on TV to learn more.

Maryam trained for at least three hours every day. She also took courses in umpiring and coaching from Cricket Kuwait. She watched videos of matches played at Sharjah Cricket Stadium. AB de Villiers from South Africa became her cricket hero. Her parents saw how hard she worked and became very supportive, even if they still didn't fully understand the game.

The second challenge was that playing competitive sports is not a traditional path for women in the Middle East. Maryam says it's hard for girls from the region to follow a passion for sports. None of her three sisters play sports. They prefer cooking, fashion, shopping, and socializing, which are more common activities. "My sisters call me the tomboy," Maryam shared. Because of this, her father was at first unsure about her sports dreams. He worried it might take her away from her family. He eventually agreed but warned her that she would have to quit if it affected her studies. He also set a strict curfew of 9:00 pm, as it is not common for girls in Arab culture to be out late. Maryam believes having a strict dad helped her learn to manage her time and push herself.

After finishing school in 2010, Maryam studied at the Australian College of Kuwait (ACK). She earned a Bachelor of Engineering Technology in civil and structural engineering in 2014. She got excellent grades. For two years, she worked as a structural engineer in Kuwait. During this time, she saw women playing professional club cricket for the first time. She saw a match from Australia's domestic T20 competition, the WBBL, while visiting a cricket shop. This experience made her dream of playing for a WBBL team herself.

Studying and Playing in Australia

Maryam's coaches in Kuwait, who were from Pakistan and India, had told her that Australia was a top place for cricket. To chase her WBBL dream, she applied for a master's scholarship from ACK to study at CQUniversity in Australia. She won the very first scholarship. She was supposed to go to Rockhampton, but she specifically asked to study in Melbourne. She said this was because "it's the home of cricket."

Maryam arrived in Melbourne in 2016 and started her master's degree in civil engineering. The university connected her with local cricket clubs. She began playing for Essendon Maribyrnong in the 2016/17 season. While studying, she had more time for cricket training. She also worked with Cricket Victoria to help more girls play cricket. She also interned as a bridge engineer. Since finishing her master's in 2018, she has continued to live in Melbourne.

Maryam's Cricket Journey

Playing in Kuwait

On 19 October 2013, Maryam captained Kuwait Blue, one of three teams in a women's domestic tournament in Kuwait. She led her team to wins in the early matches. Although they lost the final, Maryam shared the award for the best batter of the tournament.

Playing in Australia

Maryam spent her first two seasons in Melbourne (2016/17 and 2017/18) with Essendon Maribyrnong Park Ladies Cricket Club. This is the oldest women's cricket club in the world! She played for both the main team and the reserve team. Her teammates included future Australian players Molly Strano and Georgia Wareham. She also played men's cricket for Port Melbourne.

During her first season in Australia, Maryam felt a bit lost. "I was completely out of my comfort zone," she said. The cricket environment was very different, and the players were very skilled. Her best performance for Essendon Maribyrnong's main team was scoring 24 runs in a T20 match. She was also part of the team that won the championship in the longer version of the game. Her performance improved a lot in her second season.

Before the 2018/19 season, Maryam joined Dandenong. They wanted an experienced player to help their young team. This move also gave Maryam more chances to play in the top competitions. She was part of the team that won the Firsts T20 grand final. In her three seasons at Dandenong, she consistently scored high runs in the One Day matches.

Maryam then moved to the Carlton team for the 2021/22 season. Carlton also wanted to strengthen its team with experienced players. Her first season there was less successful, but she still played some men's matches for Port Melbourne.

Representing Her Country: International Career

Early Years (2010–2019)

Maryam was first chosen for the Kuwait national team in 2010, the same year she started playing cricket. The team traveled to Singapore for a tournament. She had to miss the first two weeks of college, which her father was not happy about. She was also very new to the game. "I played for two years for the Kuwaiti side without understanding the rules much," she said. "I was really just an expert fielder, like, 'See ball, catch ball.'"

In 2013, Maryam was named captain of the team for the ACC U19 Championship in Thailand. She felt her cricket knowledge wasn't perfect yet, but she had hoped to be captain when she was ready. During that tournament, she scored her first international half-century (50 runs or more) and was not out.

In 2014, Maryam was named player of the tournament at the GCC Women's T20 Championship in Oman. Kuwait finished second. In 2015, she was again player of the tournament and led her team to their first ever tournament victory in Thailand. By mid-2016, she was considered one of the best female cricketers in the Gulf region. In December 2016, after moving to Melbourne, she was named best batter at a tournament in Sharjah.

WT20I Career (2019–Present)

On 18 February 2019, Maryam Omar made her Women's Twenty20 International (WT20I) debut for Kuwait. A WT20I is a top-level international cricket match played in the fast-paced Twenty20 format. She also captained Kuwait in this match against Malaysia in Thailand. This was Kuwait's first ever WT20I match. Malaysia won the game. Maryam's best performance in that tournament was against Nepal. She scored 29 runs and took 2 wickets. However, Kuwait lost all its matches in the tournament.

In January 2020, Kuwait won the 2020 Qatar Women's T20I Triangular Series in Doha, Qatar, but Maryam was not part of the team then.

In November 2021, Maryam returned to the team for the 2021 ICC Women's T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. She played in all five of Kuwait's matches and was the top scorer for her team with 107 runs. However, the team again lost all its matches.

Kuwait and Maryam's next WT20I matches were during the 2022 GCC Women's Gulf Cup in Muscat, Oman, in March 2022. Kuwait finished fourth, winning against Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Maryam played in all five matches and was again the top scorer for her team with 145 runs. Her best all-round performance was against Qatar. She took 4 wickets for only 14 runs and scored 40 runs. She was named player of the match. Kuwait won that game. Three days later, she scored her highest T20I score of 54 runs, but Kuwait lost the match.

FairBreak Cricket

In May 2022, Maryam played in the 2022 FairBreak Invitational T20 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This is a special tournament where players from all over the world team up. She was part of the Sapphires team.

Maryam's Playing Style

Maryam Omar is a right-handed batting all-rounder. She usually bats at number four in the team's batting order. She bowls off-spin, which is a type of bowling where the ball spins away from a right-handed batter. She sees herself as an aggressive player. In Kuwait, where she learned cricket, women only play the T20 format. So, she was trained to hit the ball hard during the power play, a special part of the game where rules are different to encourage scoring.

In Melbourne, women play both T20 and 50-over matches (a longer game). It took Maryam some time to get used to the longer format.

For religious reasons, Maryam wears a Muslim head-covering, called a hijab, both on and off the cricket field. She decided to wear a hijab when she was 15 years old. Before playing cricket, she puts on a special fast-wicking sports hijab. She says, "For sport, I like the hijab a little tighter so I can run and dive around, and do all that cool stuff."

Other Activities

Since finishing her master's degree, Maryam has continued to work as an engineer. She has worked on big projects, including the West Gate Tunnel. She has focused on civil engineering since 2021.

See also

• List of Kuwait women Twenty20 International cricketers