Proud moment for New Zealand club as domestic cricket returns

New Zealand’s six top teams are after a fresh start — and cooperative weather — in round two of the national 2016/17 domestic women’s Twenty20 shootout.

Two abandonments and one no result from last Friday’s washed-out opening round have left all six sides tied on two points. With just four more rounds in the quickfire competition until the Grand Final, there is no time to lose tomorrow afternoon in Alexandra, Whangarei and on Auckland’s North Shore — a fixture that caps a heart-warming local success story for women’s cricket.

Auckland’s historic North Shore Cricket Club, which celebrated its 150th  jubilee in 2014, last hosted a domestic match at Devonport Domain in January 2002 — but in years since, its girls and women’s playing numbers had dwindled to just one team of girls playing plastic-ball cricket.

That was five years ago. Its remaining female hardball cricketers had meanwhile migrated to Takapuna as the club struggled to put together playing elevens. Yet this season, the club will field a senior women’s team in Auckland Cricket’s Emerging Hearts competition for the first time in years; it has Under-14 and Under-12 girls’ sides playing hard-ball cricket — and 45 girls playing plastic ball cricket in ‘in-house’ Saturday competitions.

At District and Auckland level, NSCC has been well represented in the Under-15s in the last couple of years as the club’s critical mass in girl’s cricket once again starts to push its leading players through the age groups.

The turnaround is the child of both excitement generated by the 2015 ICC World Cup in New Zealand, and the time and efforts of key individuals at the club determined to provide a pathway for the girls as well as the boys.

The club’s resurgence in girls’ cricket has, in turn, translated into success for its community, with North Shore’s Belmont Intermediate having placed second at NZC’s Primary Schools Shield national finals last year and Takapuna Grammar now with a girls’ First XI cricket team for the first time in a number of years.

NSCC’s Club Manager Gillian Scott attributes the dramatic improvement to several factors — the commitment and enthusiasm within girls’ administration at NSCC, both in recruitment and promotion; a high value coaching structure bearing excellent results (for example, the club’s top girls’ team is coached by the NSCC’s Premier team coach); a flow-on effect born from the success of current NSCC girls players; and a higher profile of the women’s game nationally.

Both the Hearts and Hinds are out to win on the park tomorrow — but behind the scenes, cricket’s already a winner.

Round Two, Women’s Twenty20 Competition

At Cobham Oval, Whangarei

3 pm Friday, 2 December: Northern Spirit v Wellington Blaze

At Devonport Domain, North Shore, Auckland

4 pm Friday, 2 December: Auckland Hearts v Central Hinds

At Molyneux Park, Alexandra

4 pm Friday, 2 December: Otago Sparks v Canterbury Magicians