Brisbane Girls’ Grammar School and Brisbane Boys Grammar alumni Paddy and Josie Dooley star
Read what the secret to the cricketing success of Western Suburbs brother and sister Paddy and Josie Dooley is?
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The Dooley family’s next door neighbour, Graham, must be some type of fieldsman by now.
For years the Yeronga resident has been retrieving tennis balls from his back yard, struck by either Paddy or Josie Dooley of Western Suburbs cricket fame.
The outstanding brother and sister cricketing combination frequently load up a tennis machine on their tennis court and use it like a cricket bowling machine.
Just the other day they directed dozens of overs at each other and yes, many landed next door in Graham’s yard.
“Graham (the neighbour) will chuck them back over,’’ Paddy said.
“The court has a few holes – if you hit them well enough they will get through (to the neighbours).
Cricket clubs now the key to development
“And Joe (Josie) likes to finish by launching them as far as she can, so those balls can go anywhere.’’
Backyard training is only one part of the ever revolving cricket season that seems to go on around at the Dooleys.
Another aspect of refining their batting and bowling skills revolves around the pair, and father Jon, heading down to the Wests’ nets at Graceville of a Sunday afternoon.
“Dad thinks he knows more about batting these days, but I let him go,’’ joked Josie, who first broke into the blossoming WBBL with the Heat before moving south to be wicketkeeper for the Melbourne Renegades.
“If Paddy gets me out, he lets me know it,’’ she said.
And how often will Paddy’s left arm spin defeat Josie’s probing bat?
“It depends on what net we are in,’’ Josie said.
“There is one with a new surfaces and it turns a lot more and we debate what net we go into.
“He (Paddy) wants me to go into the spinning one.
“We have had a few sessions where I have taken him down and he does not take that so well,’’ added Josie, whose class mates at Brisbane Girls’ Grammar School included Olympians in waiting Minna Atheton and Abby Andrews.
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To Paddy’s credit, he claims the spinning net “creates the illusion I turn the ball more than I do’’.
But Paddy has been turning the ball nicely of recent times in a blossoming first grade career.
When the Premier grade cricket season came to an abrupt halt in March, 23-year-old Paddy was named in the Queensland Cricket club team of the year having helped captain Wests’ title winning 50 over side.
Wests coach John Buchanan also had the highest of praise for the manner in which Paddy Dooley contributed to the club’s T20 outfit which also made the grand final, while Dooley was also one of Wests’ best players in the two day side that reached the semi-finals.
All up, it was Dooley’s finest year with the ball and as a No. 8 batsman in first grade.
“From a cricket view point I have improved every year since I started playing first grade,’’ said Paddy, a Brisbane Grammar School old boy.
“As a spinner you are always improving – that feeling does not stop at 20.
“I feel like I am finding new little tricks and different things I can use. I feel like I am improving,’’ he said, adding Buchanan’s attacking mindset was aiding his development.
Josie, 20, is also making inroads.
An outstanding tennis player in lower secondary schooling, Dooley was identified by Queensland Cricket as a player of potential and was placed in the Heat squad in Year 11, and then promoted into the Queensland Heat starting side while still in year 12 at Girls’ Grammar.
She had been raised playing cricket alongside older brothers Paddy and Louis, and younger brother Will.
“Joe played a lot of cricket with Will,’’ Paddy explained.
“She played tennis, but she was playing a lot in Will’s cricket team and dominated and that gave her the love of cricket.
“She thrived in a team environment whereas I think tennis can be pretty lonely in a team sense.’’
Josie said the main reason she became a wicket keeper-batter was because “I was not allowed to bowl’’ when playing backyard cricket with her brothers. “I was never given the ball,’’ Josie said.
Within Queensland she learned a lot from observing World Cup hero Beth Mooney both as a teammate and an opponent, but to progress her WBBL exposure she had to move to Melbourne.
“It was an amazing experience, moving out of home for first time and living in Melbourne for the first time,’’ Josie said.
It what was her first full season, Josie found the constant travel of the WBBL circuit demanding and she will be better for the experience next season.
“It is full on,’’ said Josie, who is tutored by Mooney, Jodie Fields and former Queensland Sheffield Shield gloveman Peter Drinnen.
Reading this story you would think the Dooleys lives and breathe cricket, which they do.
But there is another sporting string to their bow – surfing.
Dad Jon – also the Western Suburbs cricket president – and mum Leanns both surf, and so do their four children.
“We all started, the whole family, at the same time,’’ Josie said.
“Mum and dad decided to pick it up.
“We have been doing it for over 10 years.
“We have a place at Cabarita.’’
So where is her favourite place to surf?
“We do some day trips to Kirra, but Cabarita when it is on.’’
Out in the beautiful blue ocean of northern NSW there is no cricket bats, no tennis balls disappearing into neighbour Graham’s back yard.
It is just a nice release for Paddy and Josie, a couple of outstanding young cricketers who have so much to offer the game in the years to come.
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