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Australian Adventure for Mary Waldron

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After a busy season playing for Ireland, vice-captain Mary Waldron is spending the winter in Australia, acting as player-coach for the Kingborough Knights Women’s team in Tasmania, cricketireland.ie caught up with Mary to see how things are going.
Whilst it is commonplace for men’s internationals to spend the winter playing abroad, it is still not something a lot of Irish women do, so we started by asking Mary exactly what she is doing out there.

“I am player coach of the Kingborough Knights Womens team, and play with the men’s 4th team, I’ve been coaching our women’s and U17 teams and helping out with some local school sessions with Cricket Tas(mania).”

“I’m here until March – just back in time for the Malahide pre-season, but still here to watch Ireland play Zimbabwe in Hobart in the World Cup!”

Do you feel like the experience in Tasmania will help your game?

“I’m hoping it makes a big difference! I am lucky in that I get to train with the state team as well as playing at the weekends, so whatever I practice in nets or in one on ones, whether it is keeping or batting I can go and try straight away. Also there is no comparison for me training outdoors compared to being in the icebox for the winter!”

The conditions and standard in Tasmania has made it an easy transition so far.

“The playing conditions in Tasmania haven’t been that different to Ireland with the weather so far almost identical to an Irish summer – it will get warmer I’m told!!! The standard is similar as well; however there is only one division. Most teams will have 2/3 State players so the league is quite competitive. Just like Ireland, the player base needs to grow to compete with other states.”

With the conditions and standard not that different to Ireland, we asked if there was much difference in the way clubs are run.

“There is not too much difference that I’ve noticed, we have a club coach that would be similar to Rainey (Reinhardt Strydom) in Malahide. The biggest difference I’ve noticed is off the field; the whole club heads to the club house after training for some food and all the teams for the weekend get announced!”

After being involved with coaching in Tasmania, is it something you’d like to do when you get back to Ireland?

“I’ll be unemployed when I get home so it could be an area I’ll get more involved in – I’d definitely like to get more involved in coaching in Malahide to start anyway.”

The Irish women had a very busy 2014, playing in their first ICC World T20 tournament, winning the European Championships and earning promotion to the ECB T20 Division 1. During the year Mary was not only named vice-captain of the side, but was named as captain for part of the County Championship season.

“It’s a huge honour to captain your country and I can remember being very proud and excited walking out against Wales in the County Championships”

What was the highlight of the year for you on a personal level?

“Opening the batting against South Africa in the World Cup and getting my highest score (33) that was a proud moment walking out to bat with Clare (Shillington) and my parents being there too.”

What about as a team?

“A lot to choose from but beating Pakistan in Qatar earlier in the year is the stand out one for me!”

Looking back at the ICC World T20, how was it being there competing against the best teams in the world?

“It was incredible playing in the World Cup, something I thought I would never get to experience and I’m very grateful to cricket for giving me that opportunity, however, I think I’ll always feel like we left something out there in Bangladesh, we never quite performed to our best out there. Getting to test yourself against the best players is a great feeling though.”

Do you feel like it was a positive experience?

“It was a very positive experience, the fact that we performed well against the bigger teams was good, it shows that we’re not too far off the mark and with the continued support from Cricket Ireland we can start to close the gap a little.”

Do you think that the performances at the ICC World T20 have encouraged teams to visit and play against Ireland?

“It’s a funny one because I still feel we could have played better but we did have some good results even if we were on the losing end. We have to show that we can make games competitive to make sure it is worthwhile for teams to travel and I guess we did that against Australia. It is also really important for us to get games like this as with the top 8 teams playing in the ICC championship over the next few years we need to stay in touch and it is up to us to perform so we get more and more games like this.”

Ireland will play in a three match T20 International series against the Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars in August 2015 and compete in the ECB County Championships and ICC World T20 Qualifiers in Thailand during 2015.

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