Age no barrier for Stacey Oates who earns first state cricket contract at ripe old age of 23
Broadly speaking, Stacey Oates is not old. But in cricketing terms at the age of 23, she’s actually quite old to be given her very first chance to play for the state’s best women’s cricket team
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THERE’S an old saying that goes something along the lines of: “Never regret the things you did; only the things you didn’t do”.
And for pace bowler Stacey Oates, this seems particularly fitting.
At the ripe old age of 23, she has just earned her first South Australian cricket contract and is in line to make her debut for SA today. Her journey to the state’s top cricket team is marked by a desire not to give up and to regret nothing.
As a youngster, cricket came naturally to Oates. She progressed from mucking around in the backyard, to filling in for her older brother’s team, and then started making state junior teams.
The names she played with — and against — at this time will be familiar to SA cricket lovers: Alex Price (whom Oates went to school with at Marymount/Sacred Heart College), Tahlia McGrath, Sam Betts, Katelyn Pope, Amanda-Jade Wellington to name a few.
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As Oates grew up, she continued to travel with these players on state teams, but when she turned 15, started developing a love of indoor cricket and when she made the under-16 Australian indoor team — which would go on to win the Junior World Cup in South Africa in 2012 — that was it. “I fell in love with indoor cricket and to be honest was a bit over outdoor cricket at the time,” Oates muses.
“It was more about having fun for me than the game itself, I picked up (indoor) easily and really enjoyed training.”
She continued playing outdoor premier cricket for Sturt, but the fast-paced, “fun” indoor had her heart.
Meanwhile, one-by-one, her friends were elevated to the state’s top outdoor women’s team, the Scorpions. Pope, Price, Betts, Wellington, McGrath all gained contracts.
“I guess I started feeling like I’d missed out,” she muses.
“And I was a bit disappointed in myself for not keeping on with outdoor cricket.”
So last year, in stepped her Sturt coach Darius Wyatt.
“Darius wanted me to go a bit further, he thought I could do a more than just play club cricket, so he helped me get a relationship back with (former SA coach) Andrea McCauley, who had been a junior coach of mine,” Oates says.
Why did he do that? Wyatt explains: “She’s got so many attributes, she can bowl at pace, and she can hit the ball away, which is a really valuable asset to have as a fast bowler.
“Her ability was always there, she just needed the belief that (a state contract) was an attainable goal for her, that she had the skill set to reach the elite level.
“Everyone else around her believed it, she just needed to.”
So with Wyatt’s encouragement, Oates sent an email to McCauley — known as “Max” to the players — asking to be involved in any intra-squad training games, and in March 2018, she joined the Scorpions as an unpaid train-on for their 2018-19 season.
But there was a hitch: Oates had just finished university and was working full-time as a graduate nurse at the Flinders Medical Centre.
“That in itself was very demanding … the Scorps were training four days a week, while I was also playing and training with Sturt and I was trying to go to all of the trainings around my night shifts.”
Then, in May this year everything changed. The Scorpions new head coach, Luke Williams, asked Oates to join him at the Next Generation Gym’s cafe adjacent Adelaide Oval.
And over a coffee he offered her a state cricket contract.
There she was: a 23-year-old being given her first state cricket contract.
It was extraordinary because first contracts are usually earned by teenagers: the other two players Williams gave first-time contracts to for the 2019-20 season were Emma de Broughe, 18, and Darcie Brown, 16.
So it’s no exaggeration to say Oates’ rise is not only rare, but remarkable.
Another indication of this is the fact that Oates and junior teammate, allrounder Tahlia McGrath, are the same age (in fact, McGrath is 19 days older).
But while Oates is hoping to play her first game this summer, McGrath is a team veteran and will stand in as captain for the first two WNCL games in Megan Schutt’s absence (Schutt is being rested after the Australian tour of the West Indies).
Oates doesn’t remember too much about that coffee with her new head coach: “it’s all a bit of a blur” she says.
“But the first thing I felt was relief, that all the hard work and long days of no sleep were worth it.”
Wyatt is incredibly proud of what Oates has achieved.
“Everyone respects the work she’s put in to get where she is … she redefines what young is,” he says.
“She’s might have done it the hard way, but she’s shown tremendous resilience.”
And it could all pay off for her, with Oates named in the 13-player SA Scorpions squad that will open its WNCL season against reigning champs NSW Breakers at Karen Rolton Oval on Sunday morning.
The final playing 11 will be announced at the toss of the coin today and Oates is not afraid to admit that she hopes to debut in the bright red Scorpion colours.
Oates is juggling her cricket commitments with working as a nurse part-time, but she doesn’t want to give up her job because “I’ve found something that I really love doing”.
“I love helping others,” she says. “It’s very rewarding. But it is very hard. Physically, it’s quite demanding, but also mentally.”
She also describes it as a “privilege” to be given an opportunity as a mature player, but admits needing to balance her experience with her relative inexperience.
“At the start (of joining the team) I didn’t know whether to be, not necessarily a mentor, but to help coach the younger ones,” she says.
“But now it’s kind of swapped and the younger girls are helping me through batting and bowling.
“I’m pretty stoked about it. It’s just nice to be (considered for state selection) as a club cricketer.
“I think a lot of the time, (recruitment) is focused on up-and-coming underage players, so it’s nice to be outside of that world and still get a look in.”
McGrath said she was thrilled for Oates.
“My very first state team, I was about 12 and she was on that we went to Darwin and we’ve been in and out of squads together our whole careers,” she says.
“Stace is someone who is just a seriously good bowler and someone who gets better and better every year.
“She’s been knocking down that door and is more than ready to take it to the next level. I’m really excited for her and I think she’s going to have a really big year.”
* SA v NSW, today from 10am, Karen Rolton Oval. Entry is free.