On Monday 10 June we had a lively and interesting evening with 3 members and their coach from the St Albans Cricket Club Women’s Cricket Team. Our Club sponsors women’s cricket in Hertfordshire as a lasting legacy in memory of our Member Audrey Collins OBE – Audrey was an inspirational past member and teacher at STAGS, who played cricket for England. click here to read more https://sigbi.org/st-albans-and-district/projects/cricket/.See below for a photo of the St Albans Women’s Cricket Team wearing the shirts with our logo.
The evening proved to be a great opportunity for the St Albans Cricket Team to find out more about our Club’s projects and for us to hear about the challenges and successes of our local women’s cricket team.Our wonderful visitors told us how they had got into playing cricket and what kept them playing. Then India Newman, the Team Captain, brought us up to speed with progress at the Club.
The Women’s Team have just finished their friendly T20 league. The main league started on Sunday 16 June with 10 games up to the 8th Sept. There are home games on Sunday 16 & 23 June, Sun 14 & 28 July and Sun 8 Sept. Support at their home matches would be greatly appreciated.
The Cricket Club wants to build up the numbers of girls and their skills and hope to use this to develop the Women’s Team. Retention is a big challenge – there is a big drop off when girls leave school and when they go to university.
There have been some great developments at the Cricket Club with a major refurbishment of the pavilion enabled with funding from the ECB and the Council and from hard work by members of the Club.
The Club definitely needs to recruit more women for the Teams – there are 2 teams but they struggle to find enough players to field a Team for the League games, especially for away games. They play in the Home Counties League which includes 6 neighbouring counties and so have to travel large distances for matches. Hertfordshire is going to set up its own Women’s League next year which should help. It’s a particular issue currently when Home Counties games clash with County games but this won’t be a problem with the Hertfordshire League as the games will all be fitted into the timetable separately.
India explained they are getting help with recruitment from Rebecca at Herts Cricket. They hope to visit schools (although not many schools offer cricket for girls), advertise via Social Media and perhaps contact the University. Currently most Team players aren’t from St Albans – quite a few players are from Watford and Luton.
Club Members wore orange to introduce our Orange the World campaign – click here for more information https://sigbi.org/st-albans-and-district/orange-the-world/. Chair, Barbara Saunders OBE (pictured here) thanked the Cricketers for visiting us and wished them every success.