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Lea Tahuhu named in New Zealand squad for England tour after surviving cancer scare

Aryasekhar Chakraborty

New Zealand women’s fast bowler Lea Tahuhu overcame a cancer scare to be named in the squad which is currently touring England. She had to remove the potentially dangerous mole via three-foot surgeries in order to make it to the squad. 

She had discovered the mole on her left foot when it was in a pre-cancerous stage. She shared an Instagram post where she mentioned her surgery and skin graft back in July. 

"It got me to some low places. It was such a shock, all of it," she told Newsroom on Thursday.

"It [the mole] had been there for 18 months. It looked fine to start with and then it started growing slightly bigger and changed colour," Tahuhu said. "I had the mole taken off, and all went well at that point. There's not a lot of skin on the top of your foot that you can actually pull together, so it was left a bit open."

Further tests revealed that the wound could have been more serious than expected. "That morning then changed drastically, because it's not often you get words such as 'melanoma' and 'skin cancer' thrown at you, that you certainly weren't expecting," Tahuhu said. "I sat there like a stunned mullet."

"What was supposed to be one local surgery and two weeks recovery, ended up being three surgeries and eight weeks later," she said.

Tahuhu motivated herself during her time in the hospital hoping to play in the England tour. 

"There were a few days where I thought, 'How am I going to put ten times my body weight through my foot when I bowl? When at the moment I've just got a hole on the side of it.' But then I thought, 'No, I'm determined to get on that plane', and I'm pretty diligent with what I have to get done to reach goals,” she said. 

She is currently trying to get back to full fitness with the national team in Derby. She stated that she is careful as she tries to make a return to international cricket after a scare. 

The tour comprising of three T20Is and five ODIs will be played from September 1-26. 

The White Ferns, who are without star all-rounder Amelia Kerr, will play begin their tour with three T20Is from September 1-9 followed by five ODIs from September 16-26.

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