Social initiatives implemented to grow female participation in cricket across Victoria

Social Sixes – a Cricket Victoria program – has been designed specifically for women, offering a fun, fast and social mid-week activity with no equipment required to boost the presence of women and girls in cricket clubs across Victoria.

The Williamstown Imperials Cricket Club are just one of the many throughout Victoria, implementing social initiatives to grow female participation in the sport.

Launching this month, the Williamstown Imperials have established a Wickets & Wine program to engage mums, wives, sisters and partners of players at the club. The initiative is designed to complement Social Sixes.

At Williamstown Imperials, Social Sixes is facilitated by First XI players, running on a Friday evening after Woolworths Cricket Blast sessions. This is designed to attract as many women and girls who may be watching their children participate, engaged in cricket.

Williamstown Imperials Club President, Brett Pearce shared “The Wine & Wickets Program is an initiative by Williamstown Imperials to get women involved in cricket. It’s based on our Blasters program for kids, but with an adult twist. Ladies can come down and enjoy some social cricket and interact with other like-minded females. Once finished on-field, they can come into the clubhouse and have a glass of wine.

“Social Sixes acts as the next step for our Wine & Wickets program, with a fun, fast, social 6-a-side competition allowing women to take part. It’s a great initiative and a great move forward to help further grow participation.

“The goal of these programs is to bring more women into the sport. The end goal for the Imperials is to have a Women’s team participate on Sundays. So far we have seen a good number of Women take part in our programs, with greater awareness only able to further boost our numbers.

“The importance of Women & Girls cannot be understated. We’ve been very fortunate so far to have several junior girl’s teams within our club. We want to see as many Women & Girls as possible playing cricket and the best way to ensure that is to provide a safe and inclusive environment for all to participate.”

Image. Social Cricket Credit: Cricket Victoria