Newark R and M Cricket Club encourage more women into the sport

A cricket club is encouraging more women to get into the game by inviting them along to their indoor winter training sessions.

Newark R&M women’s programme will be starting their winter sessions on Tuesday.

Sessions will be held every Tuesday for six weeks at the Newark Academy sports hall, from 6.30pm until 8pm.

Captain of the women’s side at the club Emma Anderson said the game was an enjoyable one and encouraged more women to get involved.

“The women’s set-up at the club has been in place since around 2018,” said Anderson.

“We are looking forward to starting the new season and it would be great to see more women on board.

“I encourage all women of all abilities to come along to have a go and see how they like it.

“It is a great atmosphere, it is great for stress and you can make some new friends at all.”

“We are all about having fun and if we aren't doing that we are doing something wrong.

"Of course, we love to win but that is not first and foremost.

“We will take all comers and encourage people to come down and give it a try.

"A lot of women including teenagers, need a sporting outlet as it is great for mental health.

"I want to encourage more teenagers to come down as well because they are the next generation."

Anderson added that the women’s programme had come a long way in the years that it had been around at the club.

"It very much started off as a group of mums, now we have a lot of younger players as well which is great to see,” she said

"2019 was our first full season, we started with the softball.

"Except for one player, none of us had played cricket before.

"2020 was supposed to be our first league year but covid hit so it was delayed.

"We had one softball team in 2021, then in 2022, we had a softball team and a super eights hardball team.

"That year, the softball team just missed out on the finals.

"2023 was the same set-up, our softball team got through to the final but unfortunately they got beaten by a few runs.

"On the back of that, the plan for 2024, the plan is for one softball and two Super Eights hardball teams.

"We also have juniors coming through that started in the All Stars and Dynamos programmes and now we have three that are eligible to play for our soft ball team this year.”

This season will see the club form a collaboration with Collingham Cricket Club to field a joint full 11 hardball women’s team for the competitive 35-over format.

"They had the same ethos as us so it made sense to combine together to collaborate,” said Anderson.