Ballarat is set to have its own female cricket club by next season.
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The Ballarat Cricket Association is spearheading the venture, with the initial focus on establishing a senior women’s team for 2018-19.
BCA operations officer Greg Wakeling said the new club would be based at the Eastern Oval, where its home games would be played.
“At the very minimum next year we will start with one team and we can build the base from there,” Wakeling said.
Wakeling said a side would be entered in the Cricket Victoria women’s north-west one-day competition and didn’t believe it would interfere with the current senior women’s team at Napoleons-Sebastopol. The Naps-Sebas girls played in a Twenty20 division last season, which ran across December and January.
“These two competitions don’t cross over,” Wakeling said.
“The competition we are aiming at is a 12-round competition that starts in the first week of October and plays seven or eight rounds before Christmas and then four or five rounds after Christmas.”
Wakeling said there was plenty of room to grow for the new club, which will look to draw players from across the Central Highlands cricket region.
“While at this early initial stage it’s being driven by Ballarat, we are certainly not limiting the scope and want to branch out far and wide to include as many as possible to be part of this exciting new venture,” he said.
The focus on senior women’s cricket follows the establishment of the BCA’s girls-only junior competition, which has proved successful in recent seasons.
Wakeling said expressions of interest are now being sought for involvement in the new female club.
For more information, visit http://www.ballaratgirlscricket.vic.cricket.com.au