I was pleasently surprised at the amount of girls that can play cricket that we came across whilst on our holiday this year. I always take a set of stumps, training balls, keepers gloves and a selection of bats and get a game going at least 2 or 3 times a day either at the campsite or down on the beach. We went back and forth this year between our campsite near Landsend and my sister-in-laws near St Ives. Their tents were pitched around a small field designated for kids to play on and we monopolised this much of the time we were there and attracted a number of kids who joined in. Amongst these kids was a girl of about 12-13 years old 'Hannah' who played club cricket for one of the teams around Spondon/Ockbrook in Derbyshire. This girl was amazing! She bowled seam up with a beautiful action and was unbelievably accurate and fast, my 11 year old son Ben was most put out when this girl joined in an stole his thunder! In addition to her bowling, her fielding was spot on, you'd have had her in place of any 4 of the current Under 11's that my sons play with, she was fast, technically good, enthusiastic, decisive and accurate with getting the ball back to the stumps or bowler, it was so good to see that some girls are good at sports and I'd imagine that this girl if she was to continue developing in the manner that she must have already done, she'd be a contender for county level or perhaps higher?
Also there was an Asian girl who never joined in and was probably 16-18 years old and was playing other games with some small children on the same field. Whenever a ball went near her, again she very deftly picked it up whilst attacking it and got it back fast to the either the bowler or the wicket keeper with dead eye straightness and perfection. When it was required she was using the long barrier as well and could throw the ball the full length of the field and more. So on one small field there seemed to be to exceptionally gifted girl cricket players.
