Last week, Cricket Victoria celebrated National Women's and Girls Week with a smorgasbord of female cricket activity.
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It culminated with a weekend's cricket on the MCG that saw the WBBL Melbourne derby and the first ever Victorian Premier Cricket's Women's Competition game (Melbourne vs Box Hill), played at the historic venue.
With the popularity of the WBBL and the all-conquering Australian women's cricket team attracting an ever-rising number of young girls to the sport, the Bendigo Advertiser checked in with one of Bendigo's most prominent figures in women's cricket to hear whether that growth in popularity is being felt in our region.
Ren Haeusler had a fantastic underage cricket career and has recently coached Bendigo Cricket Club in the Lisa Chesters Shield.
Haeusler is now in charge of teaching the next generation as head coach of the Northern Rivers under-15s girls' side.
The Bendigo Advertiser spoke with Haeusler about how she thinks women's cricket is tracking in Bendigo and how her Rivers girls will go this season.
Q - For those who aren't aware, what is your playing and coaching past in cricket?
I grew up playing cricket in Shepparton and went on to play for the Victorian under-17 and 19 teams in the 1990s - I took a long break from cricket due to family commitments, but my son started playing at Bendigo CC, so I helped coach his team.
The next season, the Lisa Chesters Shield began, and I took on the role of player-coach for the Goers.
Opportunities arose from that, and I began coaching the under-14 girls' country week team before helping out with Northern Rivers.
Unfortunately, Paul Colbert, who has been coaching the team, couldn't this season, so I took over the girl's side.
Q - How has women's cricket progressed in Bendigo since the Lisa Chesters Shield came into existence?
It is really coming along, and you can see that through the participation and team numbers, which is now stretching over two divisions.
The number of women returning to play for a social fun thing is excellent, but it's also offering an intermediate pathway for the younger girls to have more of a go at playing in a female-only competition.
Q - Is the quality of cricket improving?
It's clear that the quality of cricket is getting stronger, and it's fantastic we've got awesome role models like Tammy Norquay and Sarah Mannes at Golden Square and Kate Shallard from Sandhurst.
The likes of those players showcasing their skills to the younger girls provide some fantastic role modelling for them to aspire to, and you can see it's lifting the standard level each season.
Q - How is it helping the next generation of girls coming through?
What I love in particular is it gives country girls an intermediate step because they can no longer be involved in Premier League cricket until the age of 14.
They get to stick around home and have a bit more coaching and experience before they head to the next level down in Melbourne.
Q - Is the skill level of the junior girls in the pathway getting better?
You can see a noticeable difference in how they're coming along, and that does have to do with a few players being involved in academies at the Premier League clubs, which some of our girls are.
They can go down and train through the winter with those clubs, which gives them fantastic resources and coaching, which they bring back here, and it shows the other girls who aren't quite there yet what they need to do.
Q - What does this summer look like for the Rivers girls in these academies?
In January, the Premier League clubs will play in the Marg Jennings Cup, and some of our girls have been selected in squads for it.
Chloe Moyle will play for Carlton and Sienna Barnett, Sophie Good and Kylah Virtue at Greenvale.
Q - What stage of the season are you at for Northern Rivers?
With the girls coming from different areas of the region, it's hard to get them to training with their different club commitments.
We try to fit in what we can and have a session once a fortnight down at the new Catherine McAuley College facility.
We had two practice matches against Plenty Valley in mid-November, which were our first hit-outs of the season, and it was fantastic to see where we're at.
Looking ahead, we have our Country Cup in December.
