International Women's Day: SCG to install first women's cricketer statue
International Women’s Day is an auspicious occasion to honour women and celebrate their solidarity. The sporting world has done the same and so has cricket. Meanwhile, Cricket Australia has a historic plan on the same lines to honour at least one legendary female Aussie cricketer.
FollowAs the world celebrates International Women’s Day, something extraordinary is being organised or contemplated. Cricket Australia has revealed a historical plan in the same light, as it mulls honouring one legendary female Australian cricketer with a bronze statue.
According to a report by cricket.com.au, the Sydney Cricket Ground would immortalise one of the legendary female Australian cricketers, while it would be the first female cricketer structure in the country. Although the player for the same is yet to be finalised, there are debates about Betty Wilson, Belinda Clark, or the Gregory sisters.
CA has formed a new group that would work on the same in the coming years, including Rachael Haynes, Angela Pippos, Lisa Sthalekar and Rina Hore, along with Nick Hockley (CA CEO). Meanwhile, Hore was confident that whoever is immortalised first would pave the way for many more in the coming years.
“When I was told about the statue, I could have cried. It is such an important announcement because once you get that first statue, others will follow. Newcastle might now look at it and go, ‘we should have had a statue of Belinda Clark years ago’,” she said.
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“It’ll open up discussion across all associations and towns that have produced some of these outstanding cricketers. This will be a game-changer again for acceptance of women’s cricket. The history of the women’s game wasn’t on bookshelves; it wasn’t in newspapers or media archives, it was in the memories and personal collections of past players,” she added.
Meanwhile, CA has assigned renowned artist Vincent Fantauzzo the job to prepare the sculpture. “Just as this year’s International Women’s Day theme promotes ‘choose to challenge’, we are committed to challenging ourselves to continue to address gender inequality across our game,” said Hockley.
“Precisely one year ago to the day, we were celebrating a ground-breaking moment when 86,174 fans packed out the MCG for the final of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup. So, many challenges have been presented since that day, and it is now more important than ever that we keep pushing for equality in cricket and keep building the momentum established before the pandemic,” he concluded.
