A pair of come-and-try days will soon descend upon Shepparton as the representation of female cricket continues to grow throughout the region.
Amidst Cricket Shepparton’s existing pledge to start up a junior girls’ competition during the 2024-25 season, local cricket’s governing body will run two morning events next month to give aspirants a taste of the game.
The two Sunday morning clinics, October 13 and 27, will occur between 9am and 11am with a free barbecue offered for participants on the first date.
The October 13 session, to be held at Shepparton’s Vibert Reserve, features a Goulburn Murray Cricket women’s double-header with Kyabram meeting Mooroopna on the main pitch at 11am before United clashes with Nagambie on the secondary oval from noon.
The October 27 event is set for Tatura before the United women’s side plays at its traditional home of Princess Park later that morning against the competition’s newest outfit, Moama, following the consolidation of Echuca’s two previous teams into one.
Participants will be split into two age categories: Junior classification for girls aged between seven and 11 and Youth for players from 12 to 17 years of age.
At the top of the organisational chart for these sessions is Chris Barclay, who has been primarily involved with the Shepparton United women’s side since it entered the GMC realm.
“We don’t have a junior girls system in place for cricket here and our aim is to develop a competition,” Barclay said.
“What we want is more opportunities for the girls to play and have that pathway in place.
“It gives them the chance to have that exposure to cricket without the intimidation of having to play against boys.
“What we’ll take out of the days is what the junior competition would look like if we got it up and running.”
At this stage, it might be too early to know what kind of numbers will be in store as the feeling-out process begins.
That said, organisers are open either to letting clubs put their own sides on the park, subject to geographical proportional interest, or putting originally branded sides together in a similar vein to the Goulburn Valley Bush Bash League.
“Narelle Claney is a big advocate for all this and we’ve got a sub-committee of various Cricket Shepparton members in order to get it up,” Barclay said.
“We’re working together with clubs to advertise it in different areas and hopefully get as much interest as we can at the start.
“That might mean clubs fielding teams or a number of generic teams.
“We want to work out what the interest is in a junior comp so that we can establish it and give more girls the same opportunities as junior boys.”