Australia's special invitation for bushfire-affected cricketers
Youngsters from the Batemans Bay Cricket Club will line-up alongside Australia and Bangladesh as anthem kids during the pre-match ceremony, while members from the Far South Coast Cricket Association will also be involved in the flag bearing.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity. The kids are a little bit lost and have had hardly any cricket,” Batemans Bay President John Condon said. “With all the fires up and down the coast, they’ve lost six Saturdays of cricket before and after Christmas with the wet weather since then, so they just jumped at the opportunity.”
The Batemans Bay juniors found out the good news from Australian star Alyssa Healy, who sent a personal video message to the club to invite the children to the match in Canberra.
“The Australian cricket team has been devastated by the bushfires that have gone across the country and we understand how significantly its affected your community,” Healy told the club. “With that in mind, we’d like to invite some of your junior members down to our game when we take on Bangladesh on 27 February in Canberra to be the official anthem kids for the match, which means you’ll get to come out on the field at a World Cup match, which is something really special.
“We’ll also organise a bus for you to get to and from the game so you can all travel up together. We’re looking forward to seeing you get out there (and) we’re looking forward to meeting you.”
Condon said up to 60 members of the club will be travelling to Canberra for the match. “It’s not just the kids, but the Mums and Dads, drivers, our supporters, they’re all
coming and are really looking forward to it. “They’re over the moon.”
For Charles Aggenbach, President of the Far South Coast Cricket Association, the chance to get a group of women’s cricketers from across the competition’s region to take part in the flag bearing ceremony will mean so much to so many, especially given a large portion of their season has been truncated by bushfires and rain.
How are Australia dealing with the expectation and excitement of a home World Cup?
“It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. There aren’t many times you get a women’s World Cup in your own backyard, so it’s worked out well for us,” he said. “We’ve got most girls going tomorrow in the middle-aged category but are experiencing it for the first time. The girls are pretty keen – we’ve got nearly 25 of them going up, and a few of them are going to be net bowlers, which is great.
“The girls going are aged between 15 and their mid-40s, and all play in our competition, so it’s great for them to all get to know each other.
“They’re putting on a bus for our players to go up there. The girls have been bugging me all week for the itinerary. They’ve been ringing and texting asking what time we’re leaving! For us it’s only a two and a half to three hour bus trip, so the timing is great for us.”