New Exciting Female Cricket Opportunities for 2021
Building on the successes of the women and girls’ soft ball cricket festivals in 2019 and 2020 there is a number of new initiatives planned for 2021 as well as the traditional festivals which form part of the new Women and Girls’ Cricket Pathway..
Soft Ball Cricket Festivals Pairs cricket, played on a smaller field and due to the softer ball no protective equipment is needed. Playing time at festivals is usually about two to four hours. It’s a game for absolutely everybody, no matter the experience, skill level, fitness, or age. Festivals will continue to be IOMCA run and hosted in clubs. Any age is welcome and festivals are open to individuals or club sides. People can form their own team of 8 players, join a local team or sign up individually and be allocated to a team on the day. Not available to IOMCA Senior Squad players.
Soft Ball Cricket Leagues (new for 2021) 16 overs 8-a-side pairs game played with larger boundaries with two fixtures played at a venue. The games will be umpired by the clubs, scored and points recorded on Play Cricket. League fixtures will be club run, for age 11+ and open to club sides and anyone who would like to form a team of 8. Clubs and teams enter by emailing communitycoach@iomcricket.co.uk before March 31st.
Soft Ball Cricket Cup (new for 2021) 8 - a-side knock out cup pairs format run by the IOMCA at one central venue.
Super Series The Super Series format will involve cricket ball T20 matches. Players will be split into teams depending on numbers beforehand and matches played in a festival format. These festivals will be a first introduction to the traditional ‘hardball’ cricket through gameplay. Transition sessions will be held across the island to help those female players with limited experience of hardball cricket and would like to move from soft ball to cricket ball. Super series festivals will be hosted at different club grounds with teams selected and run by the IOMCA. Players will be females aged 12 and above training in IOMCA squads or invited through attending transition sessions.
Female Cricket Bank Holiday Week End To launch all the women and girls’ programmes there will be a female cricket bank holiday weekend (May Bank Holiday 1st, 2nd and 3rd May).
Cronkbourne Women and Girls' Training
Cronkbourne women and girl's are training on a Sunday afternoon 2-3:30 to help them prepare for the IOMCA women and girl's soft ball festivals. Sunday 12th July was their first training session which had a great turn out and was lots of fun. Further information is included on the poster below.
Castletown women and girl's returned to training Tuesday 16th June. There was a great turnout and lots of fun had. Castletown women and girl's will be training Tuesday evenings 6:30-7:30 at King William's College (astro turf side). If anyone would like more information about Castletown women and girl's training or women and girl's cricket please email iomcricket@hotmail.com.
Exciting Summer for Women and Girls' Cricket on the Isle of Man
Sally Green, Isle of Man Cricket's Community Coach visited Manx Radio at the end of February to discuss the Women's game with Rhiann Evans. They talked about the successful developments so far and the exciting plans for the summer of 2020.
Inaugural Women and Girls' Cricket Sub Committee Meeting
The first women and girl's sub committee meeting took place on the evening of November 26th. Representatives included Bernie Haywood, Fiona Roome, Kate Butler, Kathryn Clough, Janelle Clarke, Jenny Barnett and Sally Green. Lots was discussed including a review of 2019 which saw huge growth in the women and girl's game and action points were taken away to grow the game further in 2020 and beyond at all levels and ages. The next meeting is scheduled for 6:30 Tuesday January 21st 2020.
Women in Sport Podcast: Cricket
Maya and Helen Helfrich as well as Sally Green recorded a women in sport cricket podcast with Rhian Evans from Manx Radio. The podcast discusses all things cricket including the women and girl's festivals, the women and girl's pathway as well as why we love the game and dealing with nerves amongst many other things. The podcast is available to download from the below link. A huge thanks to Maya and Helen who spoke excellently.
The women and girls' game is one of the fastest growing areas of cricket in the world. In 2019 the Isle of Man Cricket Association will be targeting the growth of women and girl's cricket on the Isle of Man. The IOMCA are looking to develop women and girl's cricket from grass roots level right through to the senior national side.
Schools
A key component of developing the women and girl's game is through school delivery. This involves offering coaching and teacher training within both primary and secondary schools and facilitating competitions. The IOMCA have already been delivering free cricket sessions in primary schools across the Isle of Man since 2015 and run a boys and girls and girls only PSSP festival. This year soft ball cricket will be offered within secondary school PE games sessions for girls for the first time.
Soft Ball Cricket
This year the IOMCA will be offering a brand new soft ball cricket initiative for women and girls of all ages. Soft ball cricket provides a fun, sociable and relaxed environment, where participants are able to develop their skills, socialise with friends and have lots of fun! The soft ball cricket festivals will begin in May and continue throughout the summer. There will be opportunities for the U11s and U13s to train throughout the summer to help them prepare for their festivals.
Representative Cricket
The IOMCA are looking to develop performance squads at age group levels to in time mirror the opportunities in the IOMCA boy's pathway. For senior and U19 level the aim is to compete on a national scale and enter World Cup qualifiers in the future. An U15 girl's development squad will be selected to train in the winter 2019/20.
The IOMCA can offer -
Teacher training
Equipment
3 free days of girl's cricket coaching in secondary school PE lessons
The organisation and running of a secondary schools soft ball cricket festival
A pathway into clubs and Isle of Man representative squads
The opportunity to represent their country on a world scale