Girls Cricket League Season 1: November- December 2022

Following the recent success of the second edition of our Men’s Indoor league, we launched a women and girls league to be played during November and December 2022, over a 6 week period. Prior to the league we did a lot of planning to ensure the league was culturally appropriate and inclusive. From recruiting female participants, to female coaches, even to the point of having specific balls and bats to use in the league. The structure of the league was for matches to be played weekly and each team would play each other once, with the top two, then playing a final to see who takes the trophy home. Additionally we also gave out individual awards for categories such as most runs and most wickets.

What did a match day look like? In preparation umpires would mark out lengths of the boundaries, pitch legngth and be at the venue ahead of the start time. Once teams arrived umpires would do the toss to decide who will be batting and who will be bowling first, before playing a six over game, bowling six balls and with teams having six players on each side. Hence why it was called Super Six. On average each match would take roughly 60 minutes.

We ran this league to provide opportunities to young females, especially from BAME backgrounds, so that they have a platform and pathway to get involved in cricket at a local level. In total we engaged with 30+ young females. Within this project we were also able to recruit and support 3 new volunteers who we currently have volunteering, shadowing and identifying what courses they would like to go on, before being given paid work by ourselves.

Most of the women and girls attending were also encouraged and supported to enter in other leagues and tournaments being run across the city and were even provided with playing kits as a gesture to keep them engaged and motivated when playing sports and specifically cricket. Overall the league was a pleasant success, to the extent that we are now planning to start a girls only weekly cricket session, indoors at a local venue, whilst connecting the girls to other local amateur clubs