Women’s social cricket comp a hit in Orange, hopes for future intertown competition
Women’s cricket is on the rise in Orange, and with the second summer social competition approaching an end, there’s hopes for even bigger things in the 2025/26 season.
Orange’s women’s social cricket competition got off to an enthusiastic start at the end of 2023 with eight teams signing up for the Friday afternoon, eight-a-side competition.
Due to the overwhelming demand, the competition was reinstated in January 2024 and this summer there have been 13 teams taking to the cricket field on Friday afternoons.
“It's great, it’s very much a social competition,” Orange CYMS Green Captain Jo Ferguson said at Max Stewart Oval on Friday afternoon.
“It's giving people an opportunity to come out and spend some time on themselves and have some fun with friends and teammates and enjoy the sport.”
Alongside the social competition, this summer has seen a three-game T20 hard-ball series played between Orange City and Orange CYMS. CYMS claimed victory this year, but there is a push to grow the hard-ball game next summer and plans to hold 40-over matches.
“The T20 competition has really stepped it up a gear as well,” Jo said. “And since the social competition has started, we have quite a few females in the men's league as well, in the mixed competition.
“Hopefully we’ll see a rep team as well. I think the talent's there. So let's go for it!”
Orange District Cricket Association (ODCA) president Mark Frecklington said the growing interest in women’s cricket is a great step forward for the sport in Orange.
“It’s fantastic,” he said. “It’s good for women to have that opportunity and now we hope to work on making it bigger…“ We’re keen to keep it going.”
And Frecklington said there is no better time to be pushing the women’s game locally with Australian opener, Orange’s own Phoebe Litchfield performing well in the national side.
“It certainly doesn’t hurt. It’s a great time to be trying to get women’s cricket going in
Orange with Phoebe going and doing what she is doing,” Frecklington said.
“I’m sure it’s inspiring some of the young girls and young boys … it’s put women’s cricket
back on the radar in Orange.”
The women’s competition is due to wrap up in a couple of weeks, but there is hope that it will continue to grow in Orange and its success might inspire neighbouring towns to follow suit.
“We’d like to add more teams next summer,” Jo said. “But one thing we'd like to see is other towns like Dubbo and Bathurst to get a league going, so we can play some inter-town games with them as well.”