ANY Generation Z-ers, or even Millenials, for that matter, who might consider women’s cricket to be a recent arrival on the sporting landscape should Google the name Rachel Heyhoe Flint.
The redoubtable Rachel’s name was synonymous with the game from the 1960s until her passing in 2017, aged 77, having played for the English women’s cricket team from 1960 to 1980 and being captain of England from 1966 to 1978.
The first great pioneer of the women’s game, her achievements include captaining England to the 1973 Women’s Cricket World Cup. She was also the first female cricketer to hit a six in a Test match, later working as a cricket journalist and broadcaster, and in 1973 she was appointed TV’s first woman sports presenter with ITV’s World of Sport.
Baroness Rachel, as she became, inspired many thousands of women and girls to take up bat and ball competitively, resulting in the establishment of clubs across the UK and Ireland, like Bready, in Co Derry, where the sound of leather on willow in female hands has been heard at their Magheramason village ground since the last century.
Currently their top player, Alana Dalzell (23), a North West representative player and Ireland international, wasn’t born when women’s cricket was introduced at the Bready club, alongside the successful men’s sides.
Alana rose through the ranks to become the North West cricket region’s first professional player.
Like most village cricket clubs, family links are strong at Bready with Alana’s younger sister, Alix (21), captaining the second team who are league and Cup winners in the North West this summer. That success follows on from the women’s first team winning their league last year.
“Our dad played for the club and got Alana involved, firstly,” Alix explains. “I then got drawn in and have been playing for about five or six years and also helping coach our U11s and U13s.
“Women’s cricket has been played at Bready for as long as I can remember. We have our two senior teams and 40-50 players registered, including the youth players which starts from U9s. Our ambition is to form a third senior team at the club and those youngsters will form the nucleus of that up ahead.”
Bready is already brimming with young female cricketing talent.
Showing promise that could see them follow in Alana’s run-making steps are Lucy McGranaghan who is involved with the Dragons in the Super Series (an interprovincial competition throughout Ireland) and players involved in the youth Irish pathway which include Mansi Bhavsar, Millie and Jodie Spence.
Alix is also keen to acknowledge the role of the men’s section of the club in providing assistance, encouragement and facilities.
“We train and play on the same ground,” says Alix, “and sometimes the men will help out with our coaching. They are 100 per cent behind us… at Bready, everyone pulls together.”
Alana Dalzell
