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White Ferns Rosemary Mair and Hannah Rowe returned to their home cricketing district this week with a World Cup trophy that some schoolgirl fans told them they’d watched them play for from 4 am before full days of school.
“I think when we were over in Dubai, we were pretty caught up in what we were doing over there, focusing on the games, but now that we get to come home and celebrate with everyone, it’s been really cool,” says Rowe.
“We’ve been having kids say that they were getting up at 4am in the morning [to watch the matches] and then having to survive a school day, so it’s been really cool to see the excitement here.”
Mair played all six games at the World Cup and finished the tournament with 10 wickets, the third highest amount of any player at the tournament, and the final word as a celebration event at Havelock North on Wednesday came to a close went to her.
“It’s something we speak about quite frequently in our team, leaving the game in a better place and inspiring young girls and boys to play and I think winning a World Cup has really boosted that quite a lot.
“It’s been awesome on this trophy tour to see the directly impact that it’s having, especially on girls, so it’s been really cool.”
In the early part of this week, the tour visited Wellington (on Tuesday morning), as well as three parts of the Central Districts cricket region; Nelson on Monday, Palmerston North on Tuesday and Hawke’s Bay on Wednesday.
Central Districts is like no other major association in New Zealand, being made up of eight districts, Nelson, Marlborough, Horowhenua Kapiti, Wairarapa, Manawatu, Hawkes Bay, Whanganui and Taranaki.
After Rowe and Mair visited Napier Girls High School and Mair’s old school, Taradale High School, earlier on Wednesday, they finished the day at the home of Havelock North Cricket Club, Anderson Park.
On the face of it, it’s not an obvious stop to make on this tour, but administrators at Central Districts and New Zealand Cricket are quick to recognise the increase in female participation that this club has achieved in recent years.
“They’re doing a fantastic job and I know it’s largely done by a passionate group of volunteers. Participation is growing there and it shows that with all the work that gets done in cricket, we are heavily reliant on our community volunteers to help deliver the game to the participants and without them a lot of this work can’t get done,” says Aidan O’Connor, manager, community and capability for Central Districts.
Jess Davidson, head of female engagement at New Zealand Cricket, agrees.
“We are thrilled to bring the White Ferns Trophy Tour to communities across Aotearoa including Havelock North. Through a dedicated group of passionate volunteers, Havelock North Cricket Club has experienced significant growth in their women and girls’ participation numbers. This has culminated in the development of a new Year 5/6 girls-only grade ensuring fit for purpose participation opportunities that suit how girls want to participate in cricket,” Davidson says.
“With Rosemary and Hannah hailing from the Central Districts region, this is a great opportunity to connect with the public and for fans to get up close and personal with their heroes. Both Rosemary and Hannah are really excited about the stop in Havelock North and the chance to inspire the next generation of cricketers.”
The new grade that Davidson refers to is a five-team primary school division in Hawkes Bay that has girls-only teams competing together for the first time, a by-product of the increased participation levels at the club.
Rowe and Mair, both living in Hawkes Bay, have previously been to girls-only festival days at the club and also recognise the significance of the upturn.
Rowe says: “We’ve been down here a couple of times now and seen how much the girls programme is taking off and it’s really cool to come down and get involved and start to recognise the faces that are rolling through.”
But the example of Havelock North’s success is now one that can be used alongside the unique opportunity that World Cup success brings.
“The timing couldn’t be better. It’s at a time where we’re taking registrations for the summer. We’ve got our district associations staff who do an amazing job out and about in the community delivering to schools, delivering to clubs, upskilling our coaches,” says O’Connor.
“It was great to watch Rosemary Mair play such a starring role across the World Cup so we’ve got a home-grown heroine that our players can look up to, so it will be great to profile her.
“She’s had a fantastic journey in her cricket career and has dealt with some setbacks around injury, but is bearing the fruit of all that hard work and can call herself a world champion now which is great.”
For all concerned, from the top of New Zealand Cricket, through the major and district associations, it’s about putting the player at the centre and providing a quality experience they can enjoy at junior age groups.
Although many children are naturally competitive, if the respective bodies can provide an environment that encourages enjoyment of the game, they want them to keep coming back and keep playing.
“A lot of the work we do, it’s important that we align ourselves with New Zealand Cricket,” says O’Connor.
“Kudos to them, almost as soon as the final ball [of the final] was bowled, they were looking at opportunities to get the World Cup trophy out to profile our champions, to support the major associations, to support the district associations in driving women and girl’s participation as well.
” They’re providing additional support to youth girls and junior girls initiatives around the country to get a sense of what areas are trying to do and how they can provide that support,” he says.
After a couple of months on the road, Rowe and Mair are now able to have a small rest before they are called up for domestic action for Central Hinds, and before the White Ferns reconvene in mid-December for a three-match ODI series against Australia at Wellington’s Basin Reserve, starting December 19.
Aiden McLaughlin is a freelance sports writer. A father of two young daughters, he spends much of his spare time supporting their many sporting activities. More by Aiden McLaughlin
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