WITH international heroes like Elyse Perry and Tamworth’s Erin Osborne to admire, girls cricket is on the rise in Armidale.
While there is no girls team, the boys no longer have Saturday mornings to themselves, with girls infiltrating the junior sides.
Hillgrove Cricket Club has a dozen girls running around in its junior teams.
The club’s junior co-ordinator Tony Jones said the girls added value on the field.
“Some of these girls have been playing for the club for four years and they are matching it with the boys,” he said.
Earlier this season, Phoebe Stace took six wickets in an under-16 match, dismissing boys from The Armidale School.
Stace, who is from Guyra, also plays senior cricket in third grade for the Guyra side.
Under-12 star Kareena Dawson is somewhat a veteran of Hillgrove and this year was the only girl in the Armidale representative side.
Jones said the club ran school holiday camps in order to introduce more kids to cricket and to encourage more girls and boys to take it up.
“We hope that we continue to see more girls playing cricket, just as soccer is now regarded as a mainstream sport for girls and boys,” he said.
