Tayla Vlaeminck reveals World Cup dream ahead of her return to Australian cricket team
Injuries have limited this tearaway quick to just 24 international matches across the past five and a half years, but Tayla Vlaeminck has kept busy on the sideline. Find out more inside.
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Tayla Vlaeminck has been busy outside of cricket.
Throughout the past few years, she has been completing a physiotherapy degree through La Trobe University. The 25-year-old has always had an interest in the medical side of things, but even more so considering her prolonged injury history.
“I always joke around now that I’ve pretty much done the uni course just on my own body,” Vlaeminck said.
“I feel like I’ve learned so much over the last couple of years in terms of how to rehab, even how to communicate with athletes. Hopefully, that will put me in good stead for when cricket finishes up.”
As part of her studies, she has spent time shadowing the physios at Carlton Football Club, as well as Cricket Victoria. Although she’s yet to have a teammate come to her for professional advice.
“I reckon I could write a foot rehab program if you needed one.”
But it’s a sign of Vlaeminck’s maturity that she manages to find so much positivity from a period that brought so much pain.
A stress fracture in the navicular bone of her right foot in January 2022 caused the majority of her problems, but it was one of several injuries that have limited the tearaway quick to just 24 international matches across the past five and a half years.
By the age of 20, she had already suffered three ACL injuries, while a dislocated shoulder during the 2017-18 season reared its head again last year and required surgery after the Australia A tour in England.
The lights of the Cricket Victoria rehab room became all too familiar and there was a sense that Vlaeminck would be lost to cricket.
But the fast bowler, who has been dubbed by many as the quickest in women’s cricket, will make her long-awaited return to the international scene this month as part of Australia’s squad for the white-ball tour of Bangladesh.
“Every time I think about that I smile, and yeah, I just can’t wait to get over there,” Vlaeminck said. “(The return) is probably a little bit quicker than I thought, to be honest.
“I was just enjoying playing cricket so much with the Victorian girls. We started to win games and it was seven in eight by the end of the season … so I wasn’t thinking too much about (international cricket) which is probably a good thing.
“I was just looking forward to playing any form of cricket, so to extend the season and get in the Aussie squad is awesome.”
Enjoyment and cricket were two words that haven’t always gone together for Vlaeminck. Dealing with the stress fracture in her foot saw her miss three separate World Cup campaigns and a breakthrough Commonwealth Games gold medal.
Creating distance from the sport that deep down she still loved became vital, in particular, finding a safe haven with The Australian Ballet and their world-renowned physiotherapist, Susan Mayes.
“I think that second foot injury, cricket just felt so far away that it was almost too daunting to go in there,” Vlaeminck said.
“I’ve always been someone who needed an endpoint for motivation and before that last foot, it was always the next series or the next tournament was something to look forward to
“Going to the ballet was refreshing and that was literally like little steps. Like a walk or getting coffee were the goals that made everything feel a little bit easier.
“Being away from it you didn’t feel the pressure and the constant questions.”
Vlaeminck’s belief never wavered that she would return but her resilience also became a challenge she had to overcome. Her willingness to dive headfirst into certain parts of her rehab became a balancing act for the medical team around her.
“I reckon she’s the most unique athlete I’ve had the pleasure of working with,” Cricket Victoria physio Richard Johnson said. “She’s the most diligent athlete that I’ve come across as well, sometimes to her detriment.
“Everything that she does, whether it’s simple things like her activity and wellness monitoring, she won’t miss a beat.
“She’s just got that will and desire, she’s ruthless as well, Tay, in a great way. That’s what makes her such a great athlete. I think she knows how special she is and what she can bring to the game, and I think that’s been a big driving factor for her.”
With renewed desire following her time away, and a surprisingly positive attitude following her most recent shoulder injury last July – “I kind of knew already, I had almost a roll of strapping tape on it when I was playing those games,” she admitted – the next step was working on a new bowling technique.
The priority was finding a way to ensure Vlaeminck could still reach speeds of 120km/h or more. After extensive scrutiny of the mechanics of her motion, it became apparent that the solution was slowing everything down to then find more velocity in the future.
“Tay does everything at 110 per cent,” Johnson said. “Everything she does is quick, so could we control her collision at the crease a little bit more and her back foot?
“Her back foot was almost pointed backwards and that was her way of controlling herself at the crease to deliver the ball. But that puts stress on her foot, so we brought her back foot around a bit more.
“There was also load management. Every time she bowled it would be at high intensity through the crease. Going through this technical bowling change, she had a clearer understanding that she could still work on things by bowling at a lower load and a lower intensity.
“We still have tough conversations with her now where she wants to bowl flat out but we talked about not seeing that as a negative. Rather than, ‘I’m always getting managed’, it’s actually that she’s got unique qualities that other people haven’t got. So, she bought into that well.”
The next adjustment came to Vlaeminck’s training regime. To better replicate the stress that bowling puts on the body, where up to 10 times your body weight is being pushed through the front foot, she was put through a plyometrics program which focused on jumping and speed bounding.
While she always had a resilient mindset, Johnson believes her foot now has the robustness to match it.
“I woke up some days and Johnno would look at me and say, ‘Not today’ and then others he would make me grind it out,” Vlaeminck said.
“I don’t think I would be back without them and all the work they’ve put in and the amount of hours they’ve spent in that gym with me.”
Her successful return to domestic cricket produced four wickets in five WNCL matches for Victoria, but it was the confidence she discovered that proved more valuable.
And despite the fact she’s already well ahead of her own schedule, pushing to be a part of a successful World Cup squad remains the ultimate goal.
The upcoming series in Bangladesh is the perfect chance for Vlaeminck to push her case with the T20 World Cup to be held in the same country later this year. And with fellow speedster Darcie Brown dealing with a navicular stress fracture of her own, there is a place in the bowling attack up for grabs across the next few weeks in Dhaka.
“I think by the end of the fifth WNCL game I played, I started to have confidence,” Vlaeminck said.
“There was a spell against South Australia where Soph (Molineux) and I were discussing fields for what I was going to bowl, and I think that was a turning point. Until that, it had been run in, bowl, and hope to god it landed on the pitch.
“For me, firstly, it was getting back on the park and enjoying myself again and I’ve ticked that off. But in the back of my mind the whole time I wanted to get back into that Aussie squad.
“The ultimate dream would be being a part of a World Cup-winning team. I’ve travelled a little bit and been involved in a couple of World Cups, but not necessarily been in the team or around the group.
“That’s what’s driving me at the moment and hopefully, I can get over to Bangladesh and bowl well and put my name in contention.”
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