Australia’s women’s cricket stars reflect on playing against boys ahead of the ODI World Cup

Female cricketers were by far the exception, and unlike netball and even soccer, if you wanted a regular competitive bat, the only way to do so was to come up against the boys.

And that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing either.

Gun opener Phoebe Litchfield, 22, grew up in Orange, where numbers weren’t strong enough to sustain girls only teams.

“I actually played mostly boys and men’s cricket, which I think in a way fast-tracked my skills. I had to face faster bowling at a younger age,” Litchfield says.

For a teenage Molly Strano, coming through the ranks in Melbourne’s Western Suburbs more than a decade and a half ago, there are only fond memories of her time with Werribee Centrals Cricket Club, where she would play with boys in the morning before playing senior women’s cricket in the afternoon.

“It tested me playing against the boys, especially as I got a little bit older, when they were bowling pretty quick, and it’s on synthetic wickets as well,” recalls Strano, a member of Australia’s Twenty20 World Cup-winning squad in 2020.

“That was a big part of my development … they were really accepting of me, and they made my experience really positive. I didn’t feel like the only girl on the team, because they made me feel a part of it.”

Around the turn of the millennium as a child in Sydney’s Northern suburbs, Alyssa Healy would share representative wicketkeeping duties with the boy she would one day marry, future Aussie men’s star Mitchell Starc. The proliferation of all-girls teams was a pipedream.

“We had to play with the boys, and we loved that,” Healy, preparing to captain Australia at the upcoming World Cup in India and Sri Lanka, says.

Increasingly though, that phenomenon is a relic. The 2024 Australian cricket census recorded more than 93,000 women and girls as registered participants in the game.

Though Healy’s time playing against boys was positive, she appreciates that such an experience is not universal.

“I think there’s been a big push about getting girls involved in the game, and I think that’s (about) comfort level,” Healy said.

“So if you’re more comfortable playing with your mates, you can do that, but if not, you can play with the boys as an opportunity. So I think there’s pros and cons to both. I think if we want to keep more girls in the game, we keep them playing with their friends.

“That seems to be the trend with teenagers dropping out of sport in general, not just and not just cricket. So I think that opportunity is great. I think as the boys get bigger, stronger throughout the late teenage years, that poses a different challenge for us. And I think the girls that want to take up that challenge, I think is a really cool thing, but that’s not necessary for everybody.”

Cricket Australia says data supports the idea that girls are likelier to keep playing when playing girls-only teams.

“We endeavour to tailor environments that provide the best possible experience for players of all abilities, age groups and genders at all levels,” a CA spokesperson said.

“We have found that girls participating in a ‘girls only’ environment or competition can remove ‘fear of judgement’ which could potentially prevent them from participating or continuing their involvement in cricket. This is supported by some retention data which shows girls only teams and competitions are more effective in nurturing retention.”

Strano too, appreciates that she was a lucky one.

“Some people have some horror stories playing with the boys when they were younger. They would cop it and cop a bit of grief from the boys,” Strano says.

“You want to create an environment where girls feel like it’s inclusive, they feel like they’re welcome, and they’re playing, you know, along there, alongside their peers. So yeah, the game has evolved a lot. I was the only female playing in the whole western region. I never came up against another female. So it’s awesome to see the evolution of the game and how popular it’s become for young girls.”

Litchfield sees both sides of the equation.

“I think it has its pros, has its cons … it’s a real positive thing to grow up playing men and kind of challenge yourself in that way. But I think the way that Australia set up their programs now, with heaps of girls teams, it’s really exciting to see,” Litchfield says.

Back playing for Victoria this season, where she is a member of the leadership group playing alongside teammates well over a decade her junior, Strano anticipates that she will end up being one of the last of the Mohicans when it comes to playing a heap of mixed cricket.

“I haven’t really spoken directly to them about that, whether they have played much boys cricket, but it’s probably going to become less and less common over the years, which I think is a cool thing,” Strano says.

“It’s sort of breaking down that gender stereotype that cricket’s a male-dominated sport.

“You see the young girls coming through that are coming into the Vic now, like they don’t have that social bias, like they’ve grown up watching women on telly playing cricket. And it’s the same that’s happening with AFL, with the AFLW, just breaking down those sort of gender stereotypes and what is deemed as a male-dominated sport.”