Worldwide, there has been a rapid growth of female participation in the sport of cricket, most visibly expressed by the holding of the Women’s Twenty20 World Cup, concurrently with the Men’s. 

In South America, there is now an annual women’s tournament. The most recent was held in Santiago de Chile, with the Argentina Flamingos emerging triumphant against Chile and Brazil.

With the recent appointment of a Women’s Cricket Officer, Cricket Peru was hoping for the gradual development of the female game in Peru. We were not expecting an explosion of interest. So, it was a remarkable sight to arrive at Lima Cricket Club on Sunday, 7^th November, at 1pm, 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.

Multiple nationalities were represented in the two teams: Trinidad, Canada, UK, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand, India, Aruba … and of course, Peru. For many of those, this was the first game of cricket they had ever played … or even seen! Nonetheless, there were heartening signs of talent and enthusiasm.

For the record, Commonwealth (29) defeated Markham (18) by 11 runs, with Bina Nansi (6 for 2) being the pick of the bowlers; and the partnership of Frances Carr and Ruth Burns, for Markham Ladies, being the biggest (15 runs). Congratulations to the two captains, and all involved.  To read Juliet’s blog of the historic occasion, click here.

From this beginning, there is a clear pathway to participating in the 2011 Cricket South America Women’s Tournament in Brasilia, Brazil. This is the goal. But a lot of hard work remains to be done to achieve this.