Fox Cricket: How Neroli Meadows, Jess Yates and Mel Jones are making history
FOX Cricket is set to make TV history, with a record 10 female hosts, presenters and reporters signed to cover all areas of the game for the dedicated channel.
TV
Don't miss out on the headlines from TV. Followed categories will be added to My News.
AS a babe in arms, Fox Cricket host Neroli Meadows would nestle back into her nanna’s arms to watch test cricket.
Three generations of Meadows women would be raised on a summer diet of the gentlemen’s’ game, with nanna Kathleen breaking etiquette of the day to shout out passionately at the TV screen, for her favourite player, ‘Wombat’ — the nickname Mrs Meadows gave to former opening batsman, David Boon.
Sadly, Meadows’ nanna died before she got to see her grand daughter make her own mark on the game — as the first woman to host the TV coverage of a test match, during the Australia v Pakistan match last weekend.
But her nanna’s legacy of love for the game was not lost on the Fox Sports anchor, who said the enormity of her history-making effort had “given me goosebumps.”
“I really thought of her yesterday, I really did and she would have thought this was all pretty cool,” a humble Meadows told News Corp Australia.
“She used to talk about the Invincibles when I was a kid, so I had a real appreciation for that era and [Sunday], it’s given me goosebumps talking about it. The women that have come before us, who didn’t necessarily work on it, or play it … women like her, who just loved it, my passion has come from there and that’s why it means so much to be a part of [Fox Cricket] today.”
The dedicated cricket channel will make broader TV history, with a record 10 female hosts, presenters and reporters signed to cover all areas of the game this summer.
Women’s cricket will also be given unprecedented exposure, including telecasts of next month’s ICC Women’s World T20 tournament, as well as a tour of Australia by trans-Tasman rivals, New Zealand.
Isa Guha, a former women’s international player for England, will partner with Adam Gilchrist, to front the new channel, which formally launches on air on November 4 with the Australia v South Africa one-day international.
Jess Yates, a Fox League favourite who got one of her early breaks on Fox Sport as a boundary rider during the first season of the Big Bash League, said the return of the rights for all forms of the game to Fox Cricket “feels like it’s coming home.”
“For me, to now be a part of the coverage again, and pick up where I left off all those years ago, and then take it to the next level … it’s really exciting,” Yates said.
Former Australian women’s’ cricket international, Mel Jones, who spent much of her sporting career juggling a second job — often in the sports development at a school level — so to see it explode in recent years and now, be a part of the game’s TV expansion was a proud moment.
“It’s still another stepping stone and hopefully we’ll get to a stage when we don’t have to actually have to do photo shoots like this … it will just be the norm.”
Following in the footsteps of the NRLW and AFLW, Jones said, was encouragement enough.
“All these women did so much work to get the game to where it could be, so that when the men decided ‘oh yeah, let’s support them a little bit more’ [cricket] was ready to go. We’ve still got a long way to go, but it’s a fantastic launching pad.”
Foxtel CEO Patrick Delany will officially kick off Fox Cricket’s summer season at a VIP party in Sydney on Tuesday night.