It is about time.
That is how former Otago player Jan Hall reacted to the news the Otago Cricket Association is determined to get a senior women’s club grade up and running this summer.
Just how much time has passed since there was women’s club cricket operating in Dunedin is unclear.
Hall, who played 33 first-class games and 44 list A games for the province from 1974 to 2001, remembers playing in a women’s grade when she left school in 1974 but it "fizzled out" and "we ended up playing club cricket in a men’s grade".
She thinks that was about the time of the 1982 Women’s World Cup in New Zealand.
"It would have ended not long after that, I think. It might have run a little bit longer, but it was around that time," Hall said.
Basically, it has been 40 years give or take, so it is long overdue.
Hall believes the timing is right to relaunch a women’s grade.
"There are so many young kids and young adults wanting to play cricket now, so it needs to happen," she said.
"Women’s cricket is taking off. Just look at the World Cup and the Commonwealth Games — it was amazing.
"They need to cash in. If there was something happening then bang — there is their foot in the door."
Long-serving Albion and Otago scorer Helen Simpson, who played club cricket in the city in the early 1970s, had a similar reaction to Hall.
"I think it will be really good for Otago cricket. It may mean we get some more competition for the Sparks," Simpson said.
"Some of those players are great, but they are young and that is all the cricket they play. If it wasn’t for the Sparks set-up then where would they play cricket?"
The answer to that rhetorical question is: nowhere.
Otago Cricket Association has been keen to rectify that situation for decades, really.
It has called for registrations of interest and the plan is to stage a four-team senior grade and a four-team development grade.
The development grade would be a nine-a-side competition and mostly involve year 9-12 pupils. It is proposed it would be played on Saturday mornings.
The senior grade would be a proper 11-a-side competition played on Saturday afternoons.
While the numbers are there for the development grade — junior female cricket is a growth area for the sport — it will be a challenge to unearth about 80 new players for the senior grade.
OCA competitions manager Nic Kittelty acknowledged it would be a stern test.
"Not having a senior women’s competition is a real missing piece of the puzzle," he said.
"When girls leave school now, if you are not on a professional development pathway, there is really no playing opportunity for you, which is a real shame.
"Not only do we hope this will attract players, we hope it will keep players in the game for longer and attract players back to the game.
"We’ve already seen that in our registration of interest forms with players coming back from having a few years off."
Kittelty said there had been about 50 registration since it opened the process on Thursday.
Most club cricket will get under way on the last Saturday in October, so there is still plenty of time to build up the player base.
Leading Sparks all-rounder Kate Ebrahim said the introduction of a women’s grade would be "massively important".
"There has been a lot of ground work go in and it will take a couple of season for it to really get going," Ebrahim said.
"But it is going to be an important programme to have in place for the Sparks."
