Women’s Premier Cricket: Australian top-order batter Elyse Villani signs with Essendon-Maribyrnong Park
ESSENDON-Maribyrnong Park has felt the full force of Elyse Villani’s brutal hitting several times. Now the Bombers hope she can deliver similar results for them in Women’s Premier Cricket.
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ESSENDON-Maribyrnong Park has felt the full force of Elyse Villani’s brutal hitting several times.
The Australian top-order batter blazed 77 in the Premier Women’s final in 2009-10 as she combined with Jess Duffin (168 not out) to lead Brunswick Park to an incredible seven-wicket win chasing 8-341.
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Villani also made one of her seven Premier hundreds against the Bombers that season, belting a century from 58 balls which featured five sixes and 14 boundaries.
EMP will hope the 28-year-old can produce similar results after joining the club following her return to Victoria.
While her Premier appearances will likely be limited by the World T20 tournament in November and Victorian duties, new Bombers coach Neil Gray said Villani’s signing was a significant coup.
“Just having her around during pre-season will be good,” Gray said.
“That’s probably where, because she is only going to be able to play a handful of games for us excluding finals, the real value is having her there as a batting mentor to work with the younger girls.”
Villani has played 31 one-day matches and 50 Twenty20 games for Australia, averaging more than 20 in both formats.
She has made the move east after spending the last three seasons with Western Fury.
The Bombers will have to cope without injured spinner Kristen Beams (achilles) in at least the opening month of the 2018-19 campaign.
Beams and Villani are both part of EMP’s coaching panel alongside Gray, who has replaced Karen Rolton.
“Everyone wants to win premierships and EMP have got a really good history of that so we won’t change that,” Gray said.
“But we will also be trying to focus on making sure the skills levels continue to rise in comparison to that.”
The Bombers expect their squad to be similar to last season, when they triumphed in the T20 final and lost the one-day decider to Box Hill.
“The established players are another year older and the younger players have another year of experience. There’s that competition,” Gray said.
“I am a new coach so I might see things slightly differently to Karen and might have different people getting different opportunities.”
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