NSW Government to fund $9m Women’s Cricket Centre of Excellence in Hornsby
A multimillion-dollar Women’s Cricket Centre of Excellence has been planned a northwest Sydney oval — which would see Australia’s most successful women’s cricket team play games out of the redeveloped facility.
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A multimillion-dollar Women’s Cricket Centre of Excellence has been planned Mark Taylor Oval at Waitara — which would see Australia’s most successful women’s cricket team play games out of the redeveloped facility.
Hornsby state Liberal MP Matt Kean announced $9 million worth of funding exclusively to The Advocate, which would result in International Women’s Cricket played in Waitara.
This investment in Mark Taylor Oval will give the local cricketers the best possible facilities and could see a Women’s International played in Hornsby, which is really exciting,” Mr Kean said. “This will make Mark Taylor Oval the premier cricket facility for the whole of Northern Sydney.
“Women’s cricket is growing in popularity and this is about giving them a premier venue to showcase the sport.”
Cricket NSW chief executive Lee Germon revealed the oval would receive a makeover of the playing surface, an Indoor Cricket Centre and a new pavilion with seating, change rooms, clubrooms for cricket and ruby and several meeting rooms for the 5700 registered players that call it home.
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“A refreshed and upgraded Mark Taylor Oval will be an important regional level cricket facility and an asset to the people of Hornsby and the surrounding area, and the Northern District Cricket Club,” Mr Germon told The Advocate.
“It will provide quality facilities for male and female players, catering for the more than 5700 cricket participants in the area, and, once completed, have the potential to support elite women’s cricket. The new Indoor Cricket and Community Centre proposed for the site will cater to thousands of Northern Suburbs community users each year.” Mr Germon said.
Cricketing legend Mark Taylor said the Women’s Cricket Centre of Excellence “will be terrific”.
‘It’s a great opportunity for cricket in general in the north of Sydney,” Taylor said.
“It really is a great opportunity with the government grant to turn Mark Taylor Oval into a cricketing hub.
“I also think it’s important from a strategic point of view — there’s no real cricketing hub on the north side of Sydney.
The former Australian captain said players from the Central Coast and Newcastle are forced to travel to the Sydney Cricket Group for any sort of high-performance training.
“This will be an important development for all of cricket in NSW,” he said.
NSW Breakers spin bowler and former Barker College student Lauren Smith said the plan for the centre is “awesome”.
“With all these aspiring girls coming up through the ranks, this facility means bigger and better things for them,” she said.
“I played my junior cricket for Umina on the Central Coast so for me, this facility would have been much closer.
“I had to go to the SCG for NSW training and I know a lot of girls from up in that area would still be playing today if this facility at Mark Taylor Oval was available back then.”
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