By Nick Creely
What an enormous boost for the trailblazing group of senior female cricketers at the Longwarry Cricket Club.
The club – which fields an all-female Division 6 team in the Warragul District Cricket Association, the first ever in the association’s men’s competition – has announced two of female cricket’s most recognised names will join the club for a special match against Catani on Saturday at the Longwarry Primary School.
Melbourne Stars, Victorian and Victorian Premier Cricket all-rounder Bhavi Devchand has been locked in to play for the club this weekend in what is a major coup for the region, with the 28-year-old eager to help further grow female grassroots cricket.
Devchand also has experience for Western Fury, Gloucestershire and the Perth Scorchers.
She was also joint-winner of the prestigious Victorian Premier Cricket Una Paisley medal last season after a remarkable season with Ringwood.
In another massive announcement, Sarah Elliott – who has played three Tests, 22 ODIs and 14 T20Is for Australia – will coach the Division 6 side on the weekend, and also run a pre-game clinic and warm up for the girls, and offer mentoring and in-game coaching for the side.
The 39-year-old has an Ashes century next to her name against England – a sparkling 104 in 2013 at Wormsley.
Longwarry secretary Randall Mitchell told the Gazette that Saturday’s match was an incredible opportunity for not only the club, but the association to learn from the pair and helps bring more female cricketers into the game.
“We’re over the moon,” he said.
“It’s great to learn from the best, they’ve played Ashes, Big Bash Games and so forth, but they’re both, more importantly just really good people.
“We can’t wait to see them.”
Mitchell said that it was also important for the trailblazing Division 6 side to be injected with some experience and class to further teach the new team the game, and to give a spark and hopefully snag its maiden victory, which would be undoubtedly be a memorable moment in the club’s history.
He said that the girls have been brilliantly led by Erin Maxwell and would be greatly boosted by the injection of the pair.
“It was a slow build up through Covid, and the girls have been working incredibly hard but probably not getting the results they were after,” he said of the season so far.
“And Cricket Victoria was a really big help for the club, and they helped steer us in the right direction, and the club then tried to take some action which we did (by securing Bhavi and Sarah).
“We’re so excited to welcome them in to the club.”
Mitchell urged anyone to come along at 12pm to join in a clinic with Elliott and Devchand, who will impart their many years of experience and expertise on all areas of the game onto the participants and help “make cricket fun”, which is the fundamental part of playing the sport.
“From kids, male or females, two years old to 90, they can all get involved and take part, and more importantly have a bit of fun, the more the merrier for us,” he said.
“That will tie in with the warm-up for the girls which Sarah will run, and hopefully we’ll have plenty of people stick around and watch the game, which will be exciting.
“We’ve managed to get more girls join the club, but we’re hopeful of getting some more girls join the club out of Saturday which is exciting.”
The clinic will begin at 12pm, with the match at the Primary School to begin at 1pm with the weather expected to be perfect for cricket.
If anyone wants any more information about the day, they can contact the club or find the club on Facebook where there is more details.
