As Camilla Doolin stands tapping her bat on the crease of one of Goondiwindi’s prime cricket pitches, watchfully waiting for the bowler, a quiet but stinging heckle comes from behind the stumps.
It is a familiar voice, one she recognises from in town. The voice is usually friendly, but on the field community courtesy is put to the side. Mercy is out of the question.
Player Lillian Holcombe applies sunscreen to her son’s face on the day of the grand final
“Fiona from the post office, she is the wicketkeeper and she’d be heckling from behind, and then you have to go and see her when you’re posting your parcel and say ‘you bloody cow you got me out’,” Doolin says.
Getting Doolin out is a rarity. The all-rounder is often brought on the pitch to slog a few sixes when her beloved cricket team are on the chase.
Like many sisters of brothers, she got to know the game in the back yard influenced by her two siblings. Her love of cricket prospered at school, but when she left, her cricket-playing days were over.
Tammy Galluci of the Yetman Yabettes takes off for a run during the grand final
“I left school 25 years ago and I hadn’t played since,” she says.
Four years ago, the mother of three got the call up from the Yetman Yabettes, a team forming to compete in a women’s competition in the Goondiwindi district, 350km from Brisbane on the Queensland-New South Wales border.
“I was knee-deep in nappies and thought: ‘There is no way I can manage playing cricket and taking three kids’, and I thought, ‘This is just silly’,’” Doolin says. “And then I thought, ‘Why not?’ I loved playing it and it is a good chance for me to get out.”
Doolin, a farmer, is captain of the Yabettes, one of four teams that make up the Megan L White Cup. The competition is now in its fourth year.
‘Cricket is so male-dominated’
The competition was started by Eliza Jackson alongside friends Hannah and Scott Baker in 2020. Jackson had been on the sidelines through the sweltering summer heat watching her husband play, until a chance game one day.
Four years later, she says, “we decided to make it a bit more of a regular occurrence and start the women’s competition”.
It started with just three teams, and like many of the women who signed up, the mother of two young girls had no cricket experience when she took to the pitch for the first time.
Husbands and supporters watch the grand final
“It didn’t matter, everyone is so helpful and it is nice to see when we are playing another team that players will be helping the batsman where to stand, so it’s lovely,” Jackson says.
Forty-five women now play in the competition, with most teams carrying a waitlist of players wanting a game.
The home ground of the Yabettes may as well be the CBD of the small town of Yetman, about 70km from Goondiwindi. It’s a well-kept pitch right in the centre of town. Every weekend when she was younger, Tammy Galluci would pad up with the boys.
“Cricket around here has just been so male-dominated and for a girls’ team to get started, I just thought it was great,” Gallucci says. “When I was asked [to join], I just thought this is it, this feels like home to me.”
Players running between wickets during during the grand final
Matches run for 20 overs on most Saturday mornings throughout the cricket season while kids cause chaos on the sidelines, gorging on watermelon and getting too hot. There is the occasional field intruder in the form of a lost child looking for mum.
But for two hours, players can mostly put their families aside and turn their focus to perfecting their batting, bowling or just being present in the sport.
“Women are getting out from behind the kitchen sink and bringing three kids and they are all just playing together beside the oval, and we are doing something for ourselves for once,” Doolin says. “We all want to achieve something, by showing the kids that mum can have a crack. And the improvement over the last few years is just unbelievable.”
Bush cricket is quintessentially Australian, but it hasn’t always involved women.
Cricket Australia’s head of participation, James Quarmby, says the number of women playing cricket in rural and regional areas has grown by 34% in the last five years, with 481 now playing in registered competitions.
Eliza Jackson (top) and Meg Davies (bottom) on the sidelines. The growth of women’s cricket is a byproduct of the raised profile of the Australian women’s team and investment in participation, Cricket Australia says
“We are exploring flexible/casual cricket opportunities outside traditional competitions, which are aimed at making cricket more accessible to all and we feel will be effective at growing the game in regional and metro areas,” Quarmby says.
Megan Ellis has been playing in the competition for the Yelarbon Yellowbetties since it started and admits she is still terrified of the ball. But as she steps up to bowl, her delivery prompts the same admission from the batter: it’s terrifying.
“Bowling feels comfortable,” she says.
As does playing the game. It’s a competition that has created its own community.
The Yetman Yabettes celebrate their grand final victory over Yagaburne
“There are a lot of women who I probably never would have met because I don’t know if our paths would have crossed outside of this sport,” Ellis says.
On Saturday, the Yabettes met the Yagaburne Yagabirds in the grand final at Riddles Oval in Goondiwindi, with the Yabettes victorious. On the sidelines, young girls cheer on their mothers. The next generation of cricketers is ready to go.
