SA Scorpions allrounder Tabatha Saville on life, learning and the love of cricket
YOUNG Scorpions allrounder Tabatha Saville is hoping to shine as bright as her smile for South Australia in the women’s national league cricket competition. Meet all the Scorpions for 2018.
IN GREEK Mythology, Pegasus is a mythical winged divine stallion, a child of the Olympian god Poseidon. For Tabatha Saville, Pegasus is the name of the fishing boat that her father owned while she was a youngster growing up in Suva, Fiji.
“I wasn’t particularly sporty when I was in Fiji, I just did what I wanted,” she says. “I played with my cousins, flew my kite, played a lot of tag.”
She may not have been particularly sporty, but she was already learning from her parents the art of earning her victories, which has stood her in good stead as she develops into a big-hitting allrounder for the SA Scorpions.
“My mum and I were really competitive; hide and seek or shooting hoops in the back, anything, we’d be so competitive,” Saville says.
“Even as a six-year-old, she wouldn’t just let me win, she’d be like: ‘No, you’ve go to work for your win’. It taught me how to lose properly. I have always enjoyed losing in a way because it meant I had to come back and try again.”
When she was eight, there was one thing that she did try over and over: cricket, despite the pervading vibe of “girls don’t play cricket” or “try something else”.
The first time she ever picked up a cricket bat was shortly after her family had relocated from Suva to Alice Springs where her father, a vet specialising in exotic diseases, was working with the Northern Territory government.
They were on holiday in her father’s hometown of England, when she saw “a random family” playing cricket opposite their hotel. And being the type of kid she was — hyperactive, always wanting to be outside — she joined in.
“My dad was bowling to me and I was just whacking them and he was like: ‘Yeah, you’re pretty good’ and he bought a cricket set and then I was still whacking them, and so he signed me up.”
But the rest isn’t history. Not just yet. Saville was also a talented netballer, representing the NT and identified for national representation at 16.
Cricket was still there, though, and Saville found herself the only girl playing for the Federal Demons Cricket Club, alongside the boys in under-13s, -15s and -17s.
Then that fate stepped in: she tore her ACL in Year 11 and after taking Year 12 off sport, set her sights on cricket, relocating to Adelaide for uni (studying a double degree in social sciences/psychology), playing with Southern Districts in Premier Cricket and being selected to train with the SA Scorpions squad at only 17.
Now aged 20, she has been a contracted SA player for two seasons, debuting for the “Scorps” last season in the No. 7 batting position and making 50 on debut.
Saville played in all six of the team’s Women’s National Cricket League games as well as T20 for the Adelaide Strikers in the WBBL.
She is known not only for her big smile, but for her big hitting and with two top-order batters from last summer — Sophie Devine and Ashleigh Gardner — leaving, she has the opportunity to step up the order and cement that reputation.
But Saville admits there are areas of her off-field game that need work. At the end of last season, she was sat down by then Scorpions assistant coach Shelley Nitschke (who is now with national women’s cricket) and reminded about the importance of a good work ethic.
“I’m notorious for being known as a really talented player who doesn’t work as hard,” Saville admits. “(Shelley) had a really serious conversation with me … you’re going to get found out if you don’t do the work.”
And in modern-day women’s cricket there is huge commitment required: female players train for 10 months of the year, to play in six 50-over games in the WNCL and then 14 in the T20’s WBBL.
Saville hopes — as do others — for more WNCL games.
“I’d love to see more domestic cricket games, because the more games we play the better we’ll get and that will feed down to our juniors,” she says. “People don’t realise how good female cricketers are. In the Big Bash, we’re always scoring over 180.”
So come watch this WNCL season, Saville says with her trademark smile. You’ll love it.
* The Scorpions’ WNCL 2018/19 campaign starts in Perth today.