By Tanya Steele
Local League cricket in Healesville is set to include a women’s side for the first time in a welcome move supported by the community.
Healesville Cricket Club recently announced plans for their first-ever Senior Women’s team for 2023/2024 Season.
Women’s Cricket coordinator at Heasleville Cricket Club, Shannon Maile said the addition is something the club’s wanted to do for a while.
“With more and more talent coming through the club jumped at the idea of forming an inaugural side,” she said.
Healesville is already home to many successful girls and women’s programmes and Ms Maile said it will be great to have cricket be a part of that.
The Women’s team will be entered into the Ringwood District Cricket Association (RDCA) competition and will be doing 1-day games and 20/20 matches.
Players will need to be aged 15 years and over to play and games will be Sunday at Queens Park.
Previously, players in Healesville could play until 16 and then had to move to other clubs out of the area.
“The talent will now stay in Healesville,” Ms Maile said.
Linda Bailey, Inaugural Chair of the Ringwood District Cricket (RDCA) Women’s East Competition said the women’s teams are now another arm of the opportunities that RDCA offers for people to get involved in community cricket.
“Some of our clubs are not new and some like Healseville are, which is a wonderful thing,” she said.
Ms Bailey said the uptake has been more visible in the community recently, with things like the success of the Australian Women’s team and the effort organisations have made to connect with people contributing to the success.
“There is also more funding available to help establish women’s sporting clubs,” she said.
“Women of all ages are saying, well why not — community cricket is an amazing thing’’.
When communities offer cricket programs to women, Ms Bailey said it provides an advantage to all clubs.
“Quite often the first people who come on board are family members of male cricket players who play at the club – so they already have a connection,” she said.
The Healesville Cricket Club are still actively recruiting for the women’s team and Ms Maile said the community has been really supportive
“Other sporting clubs have been great, they’ve been a really good help,” she said.
Ms Maile herself played cricket in Healesville for many years as a younger player and said there is great value to get a side up locally.
“We do have such talented players in the community,” she said.
“It’s an exciting time, it’s our first woman’s team.”
Pre-season training has already commenced and the club is holding an information session on 3 September at 1pm – head to the Healesville Cricket Club Facebook page for more information or call Shannon Maile on 0493 766 285 or Chris Handasyde on 0422 231 260.
