When the Woodridge girls’ first cricket team was allocated the school’s main sporting venue for a match, it dawned on them that they had finally been taken seriously. This occurrence is just one of the many signs that the traditionally male-dominated sport has become a very real option for young female sporting pupils as Woodridge College and Preparatory School positions itself as a genuine cricketing hub in the Eastern Cape.
The journey of girls’ cricket at the school, based just outside Gqeberha, is filled with eye-catching developments as their teams stake a claim to be regarded among the most competitive in the region. Simply speaking, the numbers reveal in stark detail how cricket has carved itself a permanent niche at Woodridge in the past 2½ decades under the passionate stewardship of teacher Adele Vorster and current head of girls’ cricket Josie Greener. From a position where Vorster, back in 2001, was begging players to fill a team, the College currently has a total of 77 girls playing cricket and a further group of 50 players at the Prep forming a pipeline for the senior teams.
The growth of the sport has not been without its challenges, but the dedication of Vorster and Greener, plus a host of supporting role-players, has seen the sport develop into something that many girls now take as a serious option. As she looks back at the journey since her arrival at Woodridge in 2000, Vorster can only shake her head in admiration at the growth spurt of the sport. And yet, without her enthusiasm so many years ago, it’s probably safe to say the sport would not have reached the popularity it currently enjoys. “When I took over the cricket in 2001, we had a type of team, but it was not really competitive,” said Vorster, whose interest in cricket was sparked when she played indoor cricket on a social basis.
“In those days, I had to beg girls to play cricket, and then many of them did not have bats or helmets, so we had to organise proper equipment for them to play matches. “We struggled in the early years because there was a bit of stigma to girls’ cricket – it was a case of ‘girls don’t play cricket’. “But we knew that for us to be taken seriously, we had to show our talent by winning matches.” Vorster’s team eventually found their way into the girls’ second league, which they immediately won by more than 20 points, and were swiftly promoted to the first league.
The sport continued to grow annually, but then came the Covid pandemic in 2020, which threatened to derail all the gains Vorster had made in the previous 20 years. By this time, Greener had married her husband, Haydn, and when she was employed by the school’s sports department, she took over the cricket programme from Vorster. The ravages of the pandemic, however, meant it was virtually a case of starting over, a challenge even for the cricket-mad Greener family. Haydn oversees the sport at the College and is the head coach of the boys’ first team.
After matriculating from Pretoria High School for Girls, Josie played cricket for a year before Covid hit and then developed a passion for coaching. That is something that shines through as she speaks with enthusiasm about the girls’ cricket programme, while also acknowledging it has not always been a bed of roses.
“There was a real dip after Covid and in the early stages of my appointment I had just four girls interested in playing the game,” Greener recalls. “So I spoke to those girls and asked them to help me to recruit players. “At that stage we took the approach that it wasn’t about developing cricketing skills, but more about setting up a family-type environment and to create a place where people wanted to be. “I didn’t really want people to come there just because they needed to play a second sport – I wanted them there because they wanted to be there and wanted to learn more about the game.”
As they gradually built up enough numbers to field a team, Greener told them they would become the legacy of Woodridge cricket. “I said if they put in the hard yards and wanted to be part of this family, they would look back in three years and see what they have built. “So that year it was about keeping the family together and it was a special time for me because we had to start with the basics. “For instance, most boys grow up playing cricket before going to school, while with girls you often have to teach them about cricket from its very foundations because they might not have been exposed to the game previously. “That is probably the biggest obstacle for any girls’ cricket coach.”
For Greener, the development of the sport at a prep level was paramount to maintaining a healthy environment for the girls’ game. “We couldn’t start only in Grade 8 to teach them the game, so that’s why it is so good that foundations are now being laid down at a prep level,” she said. Under the guidance of Anda Sakube and Nick Stephenson, girls’ cricket at the Prep was started in 2022 with 12 players. Again, the growth has been significant, with two U13 teams playing in the league and a group of U11 players competing in the third term.
Greener is also astute enough about sporting matters to know that eventually they had to move on from just teaching the basics and that performing well was a prerequisite to girls’ cricket being taken seriously at the school. “So, the conversation I had with the girls was that unless we train like the boys and put in a similar effort, we won’t be taken seriously,” she said. “You have to earn respect in sport, and until you work hard enough to achieve provincial recognition and to win key matches, you won’t be taken seriously.
“We started pushing the sport much more seriously than before. Eventually, we were given a game on Knight Field for the first time, which was so exciting for the girls. Now it’s almost become customary for us to play on Knight Field, and when we don’t, we get asked why. “And then last year the first team was allowed to wear the brown caps, which is the first team cap, and not one boy disputed it, which is recognition that we are now taken seriously.”
As they started excelling in the leagues, Greener said it had a spin-off effect among girls at Woodridge. “People would come back from matches and talk about the excitement of winning, which rubbed off on others, who also wanted to become part of that environment.” With the numbers growing, Greener suddenly found herself facing the conundrum of having to drop players, which his always difficult for a coach or selector. “From a stage where we just chose the 11 who were available, we now have to make decisions on players, and for the first time, we have started having trials,” she said. “It’s hard to drop players, especially when we initially started as building a family environment, but that’s how the sport has grown.
“The players now have credibility because you have to be chosen to be in the best 11 players out of 77, and while that is hard as a coach, it’s also incredibly exciting for the future of girls’ cricket at Woodridge.”
