FEMALE cricketers are still hyped up from an 86,000-plus roaring crowd for the Twenty20 World Cup at the MCG.
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For junior and veterans in Ballarat Bolts' ranks, this is about more than women showcasing the fierce skills in the game - although Alyssa Healy's storming 79 runs off 39 balls definitely inspired awe on Sunday night.
This is about heroes. Female cricket heroes.
Bolt Nicole Edwards has been playing cricket for 25 years, mostly without any strong pathway for women in the game. She wanted to emulate spin king Shane Warne when it came to bowling and for Edwards that was okay.
"But now the girls talk about wanting to be like Ellyse Perry and Meg Lanning," Edwards said. "It was an insane feeling. I think Australia playing India, too, created such a great atmosphere. It felt so good to watch and it felt so good for the players to experience that."
Pop sensation Katy Perry was also an event draw card but the Bolts were confident the show the Australian team served up would have meant most at the MCG would have left a big women's cricket fan.
Buninyong and Bolts' cricket coach Jeremy Byrne said there had been an added buzz about female teams in the region during the World Cup.
The event has fuelled motivation for the Bolts, whose women's team will play in a Cricket Victoria one-day final this weekend.
And Byrne said it was also inspiring for male cricketers to watch.
"To watch someone like Healy in front of 80,000 people smack the ball around all part of the ground was fantastic. It was an empowering day, being there for the occasion," Byrne said. "A lot of the players are my heroes now.
"That exposure in the World Cup will do amazing things for women's sport."
Most Bolts players trekked to the MCG for the clash. Byrne said they felt compelled to be there and be part of history and an attempt to chalk up the biggest crowd for a female sporting game.
It was by far the biggest women's sport crowd on Australian soil, 86,174, and fell just shy of the 90,185-strong world record for the 1999 women's soccer world cup between the United States and China in California.
"To play in front of the big crowd is what they deserve," Byrne said.
Byrne said the elite athletes in action had been playing high-level cricket for a long time, many left to line-up against and alongside senior men in a bid to sharpen their games.
He hoped, and was confident, the World Cup exposure would help create ripple effects in strengthening all levels of female cricket as more women and girls got involved in the game.
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