Bat and bowl like a girl?
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Good for you!
There's never been a better time to be a girl, or woman, playing cricket.
Records tumbled during this season's WBBL, the seventh edition of the tournament, with historic crowds and broadcast numbers.
And you can't quite count how much the reputation of the league soared with players like Beth Mooney, Amanda Wellington, Darcie Brown and Grace Harris delighting crowds as fine role models for the next generation of cricketers.
According to Cricket Australia, the Weber WBBL|07 final was the most-watched game in league history, with a combined average audience of 535,000 tuning in across linear TV and streaming platforms.
It was also the most-watched season ever, with a cumulative average linear TV audience of 5.36 million viewers.
Cricket fans didn't just watch at home either, they put their bums on seats - with a 15,511 strong crowd at Optus Stadium for the final the highest attendance at a standalone WBBL match, smashing the previous record of 5650 at Great Barrier Reef Arena, Mackay in WBBL|04.
This represented an increase of 15 per cent on the WBBL|06 cumulative average audience - and no doubt finally being able to stand on its own two feet, instead of sharing screen time with the men's tournament, has been a huge boon for organisers.
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Pleasingly, it isn't just popular in its own right for females, it is in fact the fourth most watched sporting league in Australia of either gender according to recent broadcast figures.
Registered participation among women and girls has grown 61 per cent in four years from 47,831 to 76,413 Australia-wide.
Cricket's role as a uniting force in the community has been underscored by the 2020/21 Australian Cricket Census with more kids registering for club cricket and Woolworths Cricket Blast despite the impact of Covid-19 disruptions.
The rising popularity of cricket with girls continued, with a 17.5 per cent increase in girls registering for club and Woolworths Cricket Blast participation aided by the success of Australia's World Champion Women's Team and the significant contribution from CommBank into The Next Innings program.
The increase in children registered as participants was in large part driven by girls (+17.5 per cent), who for the first time ever account for one-fifth of all participants in Woolworths Cricket Blast.
They are some fantastic numbers, but like many parts of life living in regional, rural and remote areas of our vast country, there are still improvements that must be made to give those living outside cities equal opportunties.
Parkes' Kerry Spence, whose daughter Maddy still plays locally in addition to her commitments in the NSW underage programs and grade cricket in Sydney, was pretty succinct when asked whether the pathways in regional and rural NSW afford the same opportunities for females that is does for city players.
"The short answer is no," she told the Parkes Champion Post.
"The metro pathway has the opportunity to train twice a week (pre-covid lockdowns, anyway) in 'you-beaut' facilities with top notch trainers whereas out here the distances are all so vast with a real lack of coaches.
"Lower involvement in the country compared to the metro areas also makes it open to a bigger range of varying abilities in an elite environment.
"There are things we can improve for sure, having more coaches available and better facilties (though the new centre at Orange is awesome) would be ideal.
"Distance is very difficult to overcome, but for those dedicated you do just go wherever you have to," said Spence.
15-year-old Maddy made her first-grade debut earlier this season with Penrith, which also happens to be the club of a fellow Central West import, Orange's Phoebe Litchfield - who was named as the WBBL's 'Young Gun' after yet another sterling season despite her youthful age.
Litchfield's father Andrew still does a lot of coaching of players in this region, including Maddy - who has developed immensely under his tutelage.
Spence said her daughter admires what Phoebe has been able to achieve already in cricket after growing up in the Central West.
"Mads really looks up to Phoebe and Mads herself could be a role model to young girls here," she said.
"Maddy was just two weeks old when she went to her first Parkes rep game in Condo for her brothers, and we haven't stopped cricket since!"
Australia, South Australia and Adelaide Strikers legspinner Amanda Wellington, who also happened to win the Golden Cap as the leading wicket taker for WBBL|07 told the Parkes Champion Post not only was cricket a brilliant game to play, it was now a viable career.
"My message to younger girls on why they should play cricket right now is because you can make a career of it whereas a few years back you probably saw cricket as more a side career," she said.
"The opportunities in cricket are unbelievable these days, for example I've travelled to England and New Zealand for the previous years to play in their T20 competitions and honestly I've had the best time.
"I'm enjoying it more and loving it, to think I'm doing something I love, and getting paid for it, I'll be forever grateful," said Wellington.
The affable and quirky fan favourite is a perfect role model for the next generation of female cricketers, and was on the mic for Channel 7 when she took an astonishing 5-8 against Brisbane in the finals.
The modesty and genuine nature of her comments on the mic highlighted why these WBBL stars are women to aspire to.
So kids of all ages and gender needn't now only attempt to replicate Pat Cummins and Marnus Labuschagne in the backyard.
Now they can aspire to be Wellington and Litchfield thriving in the middle of a huge crowd.
And ain't that brilliant.
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