After months of anticipation and excitement, the Sydney Thunder and Adelaide Strikers have arrived in Wagga and are ready to battle it out in this weekend’s Women's Big Bash League matches.
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For Wagga’s younger generation of female cricketers, the opportunity to see their heroes play is nothing short of inspiring.
“It definitely makes me think how we could go in the future, we look up to them so much” 13-year-old Zoe Jenkins said.
“It feels like we have more of a chance to have a go with cricket and accomplish something,” 14-year-old Stacie Hiscock said.
“They’re very inspiring and show us that we can get to that stage and be really good at cricket,” 12-year-old Felicity Cawley said.
“They're all from around the Riverina, so it's good to see them come and out and play and be role models for the younger kids,” 11-year-old Perri Nash said.
Wagga-born Alex Blackwell, who captains the Sydney Thunder, said girls’ cricket is an entirely different ball game from when she and her twin sister began playing.
"Cricket is a sport for girls equally," Blackwell said.
"It has moved a long way from the times Kate and I were playing cricket locally, and we were two of the only girls in the whole town playing in Griffith.
"We would represent Griffith and come and play against the Wagga side or Hay, and there were no other girls.”
Phil Jenkins manages women’s cricket for the Riverina Cricket Academy; he said there is now more opportunity than ever before for young girls to take their love of the game all the way.
“A young girl now can see the players on TV and then they can see that there's somewhere for them to play in a girls competition – that wasn't available before,” Mr Jenkins said.
“Through that pathway, they can get picked up and offered to trial for academies and different teams.
“There are some really good girls coming out of the Riverina and coming into our academy, so I reckon we'll definitely be seeing some big names out of here in the future.”
Mr Jenkins said this weekend will fuel the girls’ passion even more.
“They can come here and see how the girls they watch on TV train and play, and then they can take that away and say ‘I can get there, I can see a pathway if I work hard and I want it’,” he said.
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