Owzat! Now the girls are bowled over by cricket
THE thwack of leather on willow may generally be considered to be a game for the boys.
But cricket – often written off as too English for Scots – has been given a female boost north of the Border.
Sports bosses yesterday launched a Scottish Women’s Cricket Association (SWCA) in a drive to encourage more female participation in the sport.
There are high hopes the body will i ncrease the number of women who play the game by inspiring them to join and by supporting those who already play.
Kathryn White, 35, an allrounder on the Scotland team who juggles bowling and batting with being a mother of one, said: ‘There have always been women playing, but there’s probably not been enough emphasis on the women’s game.
‘Cricket is definitely a sport dominated by men but, if you look back in history, the women played their first World Cup two years before the men did. Over the past ten years there’s been a bigger push for women to get involved in the sport across Scotland, but it will take a few years before we’re on a level standing.’
Cricket is thought to have been i ntroduced t o Scotland by English soldiers garrisoned in the country in the years following the Jacobite rising led by Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745.
The first Scottish match for which records are available was played in 1785 at Schaw Park, Alloa, Clackmannanshire, between two teams from the aristocracy.
But despite cricket having more than 200 years of history north of the Border, many notable Scottish players have j oined the English national team instead of their own.
Scotland’s national cricket team only became an associate member of the International Cricket Council in 1994 after severing links with the England cricket team two years earlier.
The Scottish national women’s team only made their international debut in 2001 at the European Championship, where they lost all three games and finished last. Now the SWCA is aiming to boost the sport to 2,000 f emale players by 2018 through increasing the number of female coaches and building more teams.
The new body also hopes to gener- ate 500 more coaching opportunities at summer camps and schools and to train 50 female teachers to produce a new generation of athletes.
Caitlin Heathcote, 16, from Edinburgh, is a bowler in the Scotland under-17 team who has set her sights on international success.
She said: ‘People do still think of it as a men’s sport but if you strive past those stereotypes you can go places.’
The SWCA will be led by its first president, Liz Smith, Tory MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, who can look back on a cricket career with seven caps for Scotland as well as experience of coaching emerging talent.
She said: ‘Cricket is for everybody and Scotland has a long history of cricket i n places l i ke Fife and Aberdeenshire.
‘In order to build up for the future, we’ve got to make sure that there are far greater facilities across Scotland.’