With clubs in the midst of their All Stars and Dynamos programmes, it felt like a good time to share this interview with Joanne Wootton of Worsbrough Bridge Cricket Club. She’s at the heart of one of the most successful programmes in the area, with lots of girls joining and playing for the club. Dean […]
Women and girls cricket
Bradford Park Avenue Ladies vs St Chad’s Broomfield
Arriving fashionably late at Bradford Park Avenue cricket ground, St Chad’s Broomfield Women’s XI were batting. The Leeds-based side, on Otley Road, hadn’t won a game this season but were off to a flier here at 60-0. The visitors clearly meant business, with three coaches in attendance, and they’ll have been pleased with the way […]
Taj Butt & Great Horton Church: Inspiring junior cricketers
This is the story of Great Horton Church; a thriving, inner-city cricket club in Bradford whose community outreach stretches far beyond the game. I’m anticipating traffic congestion to get to Allerton Road in BD8 for the usual 6.15pm start. As it turns out, the drive over the top, past Bradford Royal Infirmary Hospital, a trip […]
Archer Cup: Six-team showdown at Northowram
The Archer Cup (named after Steve at the Yorkshire Cricket Board, not Joffra) delivered the hat-trick: skills, sunshine and spectators. After last year’s event had been rained off, this was a chance to bring together the six teams from the inaugural West Yorkshire Women & Girls Cricket League. The drive over set the scene with […]
League cricket transformation for Yorkshire’s women and girls
Here is an overview of women and girls’ league cricket across Yorkshire, in association with the Yorkshire Cricket Board. New pyramid Yorkshire loves its pyramids and after there was a re-structure in men’s league cricket in 2016, the women and girls’ game has followed suit. A single Premier League at the top and each region […]
Melanie Mahmood: Umpiring and participation in South Yorkshire
Mel Mahmood is a cricket umpire and Participation Manager for the Yorkshire Cricket Southern Premier League. Here she shares her journey in cricket, the women’s and girls’ game in South Yorkshire as well as a formal link-up with the Premier League. *** I was 45 years old when I first picked up a cricket bat. […]
Women’s and girls’ cricket: The magic happening in Huddersfield
2023 is going to be a huge summer of cricket for women and girls in the Huddersfield area, shares Sara Begg, as she charts its growth and updates us on developments and opportunities. The ‘Huddersfield’ group of the West Yorkshire Women and Girls Cricket League’s softball cricket competition has grown a remarkable fourfold, from 4 […]
Harrogate Cricket Club: The next chapter
I wrote an article not so long ago about Glasshouses Cricket Club and their very real struggles to stay afloat for another season. One of the comments came from George Owram, joint chair at Harrogate Cricket Club, who shared his thoughts on loaning out juniors to Glasshouses, Pateley Bridge and others. It got the grey […]
Grace Hall: Chance to Shine to Northern Diamonds Academy
Grace Hall’s path to representing the Northern Diamonds Academy began with a chance encounter at school. It speaks to how cricket can captivate us at an early age if we get the chance. Grace’s story, just like Mollie Ovenden, is of a young woman whose appetite for the game and seeking out opportunities has propelled […]
Mollie Ovenden: From the Nidderdale Cricket League with Raskelf and Alne to Bengaluru
Though we’ve never met, Mollie Ovenden strikes me as a cricketer who doesn’t wait for opportunities to come her way but grabs them. She has represented Yorkshire in county age group cricket, captained a men’s league team (Raskelf) in her teens, and at just eight years old, won the Wensleydale Creamery’s Junior Voice of Cricket competition. […]