Madeleine in Lower III (Year 6) has been playing at Wargrave Cricket Club since Upper I(Year 4). She’s a great advocate for this increasingly popular game amongst girls. 

“Cricket is a fun sport, that’s inclusive and as soon as I started playing I knew I liked it“ Madeleine declares. The Abbey now has cricket on the curriculum throughout the School, and has a noteworthy former pupil in Claire Taylor who represented England more than 150 times, who has been back to speak and share her experiences. 

Madeleine would love to see more of her friends & other Abbey girls joining clubs too. Wargrave is a strong club, which is keen to recruit girls from the junior and senior age groups. Starting with softball, the coach, who Madeleine obviously admires, can quickly get the older girls up to the standard for hardball matches. 

Madeleine enjoys the training, “which is fun and relaxed”, as well as matches, which in comparison, “are competitive, and exciting”. Playing cricket has also helped Madeleine’s strength for throwing events in athletics and rounders. 

Before lockdown, she regularly played in boys’ teams and although she would rather there were always enough girls of her age she’s not deterred and feels confident in facing the bowler and showing him she’s no pushover! Madeleine obviously loves the sport and intends to go far with it. She is enjoying developing her skills and is looking forward to training restarting straight after the Easter weekend. 

There are other local clubs with girls teams such as Henley, Kidmore End, Binfield and Warfield, and having previously written about coming out of lockdown being the perfect opportunity to branch out and try a new sport – what have you got to lose? Madeleine is definitely keen to play more girls’ matches, so come on down to Wargrave Cricket Club if you’d like to give it a go – they need you.