Major restructure for ACT women's cricket, Meteors players commit to Canberra grade summer

The region's eight grade cricket clubs will all be represented in the top women's league, which will be underpinned by a second division, likely made up of eight teams.

In a major boost for women's cricket in Canberra, clubs will join forces in the top competition with Meteors players to be distributed across the league. All eight clubs are aiming to field standalone second-grade sides.

Previously, most Meteors players have opted out of the Canberra women's grade competition, often playing in Sydney or Melbourne instead. All rounder and Cricket ACT pathway manager Erin Osborne said the new premier grade competition would provide the missing link for females.

"We were trying to transition young cricketers from junior cricket into senior cricket, but also we were trying to develop the next generation of Meteors players which in one competition was impossible to do," Osborne said.

"It's an opportunity for the Meteors to be fully embedded within our community and to give back by playing in our Canberra grade cricket, but also it's a genuine selection tool now and it's a pathway for the next generation of Meteors girls.

"Now it's a direct comparison to the current Meteors players and the future ones coming up."

Weston Creek and Tuggeranong will combine to make up one of the top-grade teams.

Eastlake is to link with Queanbeyan, Western District blends with ANU while Ginninderra will join forces with North Canberra/Gungahlin.

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Significantly, it marks a return to women's grade cricket for ANU and Queanbeyan, with the latter having recently announced it will build a ladies' changeroom at its Freebody Oval base.

Clubs are likely to share home-game duties, according to Eastlake president Damian Eaton.

"It will definitely be a shared approach both on the field and off the field, in terms of hosting home games, once a month we'll host at Kingston and once a month Queanbeyan will host," Eaton said.

"That's been the really pleasing thing about this whole process is that all those clubs working closely with Cricket ACT are really behind it. We'll see ANU and Queanbeyan who haven't fielded teams for several years committed to this, albeit at different sort of levels.

"It's a long term venture and something that can be advantageous across the community, it's had buy in from all of those clubs.

"It will strengthen the competition beyond what we've seen before. It's really important in the sense of creating that pathway that now will be our girls playing, coming up through the junior competition through our senior cricket and now clearly linked in to high performance."

The competition restructure follows on from Cricket Australia's recent census, which showed girls' participation in the sport has boomed almost 80 per cent over the past five years.

"The data's been released and Canberra's done exceptionally well with the junior numbers, we've had a really good increase in that with females playing our sport," Osborne said.

"If we have all eight clubs involved, that means they've got the infrastructure there so when it is possible and the time's right to expand the competition, it's a much easier process rather than starting from scratch."

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