Taylor Fitzgerald and Carys Underwood picked for QLD cricket team

Two standout Sunshine Coast female cricket talents are ready to represent their state and their culture at the National Indigenous Championships.

Sunshine Coast cricketers Taylor Fitzgerald and Carys Underwood. Picture: Patrick Woods

Two rising Sunshine Coast cricket talents will join some of Australia’s most talented Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander players for a tournament they say they’re honoured to be part of.

Caloundra star Taylor Fitzgerald, 18, and Cooroy-Eumundi youngster Carys Underwood, 15, were selected for the Female Queensland Indigenous Championship team alongside a number of senior cricketers in the Queensland Premier competition.

The competition is back following a two-hiatus due to Covid-19, with some of the nation’s best players to gather for the National Indigenous Cricket Championships in Alice Springs from February 22 to 28.

Sunshine Coast sporting talent Rosie McMahon was also selected in the squad but had to decline due to junior Matildas football commitments.

Carys Underwood, a talented all-rounder, has made the Queensland Indigenous team. Picture: Patrick Woods

The Queensland women’s team would be coached by former Scorchers star Ash Renouf.

“I feel very honoured to be selected in the team, I also feel very excited to be a part of this and hope to learn a lot from the experience,” Underwood said.

“I’m an eighth generation aboriginal, on my grandmother’s side.

“Part of the Kaomu mob originally from the Narran-Balonne River area, more recently settling on Gubberamunda station directly north of Roma through till the 1950s.”

“I’m from the Kamilaroi tribe down in New South Wales near the Tamworth area,” Fitzgerald said.

“My mum is Indigenous so I’m pretty stoked to represent my tribe, Queensland and for all of the other girls to have the same experience.”

Taylor Fitzgerald is one of the Sunshine Coast’s best rising sporting talents. Picture: Patrick Woods.

Fitzgerald, who is a former Meridan State College student, represented the side in 2019 and 2020 and said she was excited for the coming weeks.

“On the days we don’t play we go and do some culture stuff where we go down to the waterholes and learn about cultures from other players and teams,” she said.

“You get to know everyone which is really good and it’s cool to see the younger girls or the players who have never experienced this tournament get excited.”

Both players thanked their local coaches, teammates and the Sunshine Coast Scorchers for support.