Wonderful opportunity for female game as Southern Scorpions take on Bunbury and Districts in Smash debut

Southern Scorpions captain Holly Pearce said budding young players in the region are itching with excitement as they join Albany’s Southern Smash tournament, in a showpiece for women’s cricket next month. The Southern Scorpions will face their South West rivals in a best of three matches, as part of regional WA’s premier T20 competition. Instead of six men’s teams playing across the three turf pitches at the Centennial Park precinct, the new-look Smash tournament will host four men’s senior sides, two under-21 teams and a women’s competition. The region’s affiliate women’s side the Southern Scorpions will take on a women’s outfit from Bunbury and Districts Cricket Association in a move the Smash declared would help grow the game in the Great Southern. Pearce, who captains Australs North in the Great Southern Cricket Association, said it was exciting for the players to showcase their skills on the big stage. “It’s huge. We’ve been pushing to get a stronger format for the women down here for quite some time now, and to be able to have this at the Southern Smash is just going to put so much more emphasis on the female development down in Albany,” she said. “It’s also about recognising the players in the Great Southern as well. “I think it would just be a really good experience for all of us, and a majority of us don’t actually play with other females, so for a lot of us this is a new experience being able to play in such a high-performance game. “We are definitely pushing to get a win but it’s definitely more of getting that exposure out there, and to hopefully get a hardball format for the women’s having this exposure now.” The Scorpions will work with high-performance coaches in the lead-up to the tournament and Pearce urged the throng of Smash spectators to get behind their fixtures. “Just come down and support us and see how we’re going and just get some insight,” Pearce said. “We’ll have our talent performance coach coming down next week for us to help build morale and kind of give us some more insight. “It’ll be really awesome to see some Albany coaches, and people in general, coming down to support the women’s play.” The team boasts strong experience with Nyabing-raised Lahni Davis (Midland-Guildford) and Albany’s Emma Dolan (Melville) both playing in the WA Premier Cricket competition in Perth. Denmark’s Julianne Langley and Albany’s Jessica Cramer-Jones, Nadia Moolman and Tess Badger have all previously played women’s country week while Tambellup’s Emmaline Cunningham was also selected. Southern Scorpions Southern Smash squad Holly Pearce (C) - Katanning Tess Badger - Albany Inara Menzies - Katanning Emily Pinney - Katanning Patricia Hoveler - Albany Lahni Davis - Albany Emma Dolan - Nyabing Emmaline Cunningham - Tambellup Jessica Cramer-Jones - Albany Nadia Moolman - Albany Julianne Langley - Denmark