Women’s Cricket

WOMEN’S CRICKET HISTORY IN PERU

For many years, the most famous female involvement in Peruvian cricket had been when Louise Hildebrand, sister of then-captain Harry Hildebrand, caught Cricket Peru stalwart, Simon Walter, when he was on 49, in February, 2005!

However, 2008 saw the first girls cricket game held between British schools, Markham College and San Silvestre (Girls School). This has been followed by irregular, inter-school girls games between Markham and Hiram Bingham School, who have both run a girls cricket development programme.

Then, in 2010, Cricket Peru was delighted to include four young women in the Twenty20 Second Division Championship.

Juliet Solomen was voted onto the Cricket Peru Executive Committee as the first female Women’s Cricket Officer at the 2010 AGM in September, entrusted with developing female involvement in cricket throughout Peru.

Nobody was expecting an explosion of interest. So, it was a remarkable sight to arrive at Lima Cricket Clubless than two months after Juliet’s appointment, on 7thNovember, 2010, and see more women than men practicing cricket!

They were warming up for the inaugural women’s 8-a-side match between two recently-formed sides: the Commonwealth Expert Side, captained by said Women’s Cricket Officer, Juliet Solomon and Markham Ladies, captained by Frances Carr, a teacher at Markham College.

Our goal was to have a team to compete in the annual Cricket South America Women’s Championships, against Argentina, Brazil (pictured on tour in Trinidad, above) and Chile. The first one had been held in Santiago, in September, 2010  but Peru was not present.

So, Cricket Peru was extremely proud to be able to send a national women’s team to the Championship in Brasilia in August 2011. Whilst ‘The Vicuñas’, as they came to be known, did not win any of their three games, their performance on and off the field was commendable, and they returned to Peru with heads held high and a heightened level of enthusiasm for the game and have since played in all the following WSAC, with their last one being played in Colombia, 2018.

In another proud development, Cricket Peru hosted the 2014 South American Women’s Championship in Lima simultaneously with the Men’s Championship, using the artificial pitch at Cambridge College … with the final between Brazil & Argentina on the turf pitch of Lima Cricket & Football Club. The Argentinean ladies won a close, high-standard game, with all agreeing that the mixed format had been a great success.
in 2019 Cricket Peru will be hosting the South American Women’s Championship for the second time.
Read below for more information on the women’s pathway and the progress made in the past 5 years since the last tournament.

WOMEN’S CRICKET

Women’s cricket in Peru has developed at a slightly slower rate than that of the men, but in spite of this, Cricket Peru has made it their focus over the years to promote equality in sport, championing female participation in Peru.

Trying to grow a traditionally male sport in a Latin-American country is a challenge that demands patience in its undertaking. In the past years, women’s cricket has begun to prosper with more and more female participation within Cricket Peru’s outreach development programs.

In the past, the main females playing cricket here were British expats, but through perseverance Cricket Peru has managed to raise Peruvian female participation consistently since 2014.
Many young Peruvian girls and women have been attracted to Cricket Peru’s free initiatives all over Lima, so as a result, in July of 2018 a program was launched to help unify the female participation in Peru and to create an environment to help it prosper even more.
This program is called CRICKET PARA MUJERES/CRICKET FOR WOMEN, which has helped Cricket Peru to begin the important process of creating a women’s cricket pathway for Peruvian females of all ages while also creating a strong base to choose from for the national team.

The national team is LAS VICUÑAS. The national team competes in the Women’s South American Cricket Championships every year against Chile, Argentina and Brazil and now Mexico.
This year the tournament will be held in Lima and in a historic first, the Vicuñas will be playing an ICC Official Peruvian team in the championship.
In the past, many of the Peruvian girls were not able to afford the trip over to the championships in Brazil and Argentina to represent their country, and as Cricket Peru is a non-profit organization it couldn’t afford to pay for all flights. This year, with the championship being in Lima, it is the first opportunity since Cricket Peru last hosted in 2014, to showcase the Peruvian female development of the past 5 years.

Cricket Peru strives to promote the equality of women in sport and we will continue to support equal participation and empower young Peruvian girls to push down the outdated stereotypes they can be faced with.