WBBL 2024-25: 15 year-old Caoimhe Bray set for Sydney Sixers debut

She may be just 15 but Caoimhe Bray is following in the footsteps of Elysse Perry by combining an elite football career with the Junior Matildas with WBBL stardom.

Australia’s newest multi-sport phenomenon Caoimhe Bray is in line to make her WBBL debut at just 15 years old when the Sydney Sixers start their season against the Renegades on Sunday in Adelaide.

Having only turned 15 last month, Bray recently played for the Sixers in the T20 Spring Challenge. She finished the tournament with five wickets and was rewarded with a three-year contract at the club. But now Bray will likely be thrown straight into the deep end in the Sixers’ first match of WBBL10.

Bray has put together an incredible resume across representative cricket competitions which includes being the leading run-scorer in last season’s NSW under 18 Brewer Shield at just 14. She also played for the Australian under-19s earlier this month, scoring 84 and taking 4-20 in a player-of-the-match performance against New Zealand.

However, Bray’s talents also spread to the world game as one of the most promising young goalkeepers in Australia. She made her international debut for the Junior Matildas during the AFC Under 17 Women’s Asia Cup in Indonesia earlier this year.

Caoimhe Bray at the 2024 National Youth Championships for Northern NSW Football. Picture: NNSWF

“I did get a few questions after I got signed for the Sixers, they’re like, ‘Are you still playing soccer?’,” Bray said. “And yeah, I’m still playing soccer.

“I want to keep doing them both for as long as I can and I think this WBBL contract isn’t going to stop me from playing soccer. I’ve brought the soccer ball down so I might go to the park or something and kick a ball around.

“I was at home in Newcastle and I got a call from (Sixers manager) Rachael Haynes and she called my mum first and was like, ‘We want to talk about WBBL for Caoimhe’, and I was standing to the side, mouth wide open, I was speechless.

“It definitely has come around really quickly. I haven’t been home much either but I mean, I’m not complaining. I love doing sports.”

Naturally, the comparisons have been made to fellow dual-sport superstar, and her now Sixers captain, Ellyse Perry.

For many years, Perry similarly juggled the pressures of representing Australia in both cricket and football. Her career is one that Bray has always aspired to, attempting to follow in her footsteps wherever possible.

Bray is set to make her WBBL debut on Sunday at just 15 years old. Picture: Phil Hillyard

And while she’s had to change her shirt from the No. 8 she usually wears in honour of her idol – “Obviously I’d want to get Pez’s number eight but she’s definitely got that one over me,” Bray said – the teenager isn’t fazed by the similarities that will be drawn.

“No, I love (the comparisons),” Bray said. “Ellyse Perry has definitely been a role model of mine since I was very, very young.

“I think if you ask all my primary school friends, every school project was about her, that’s for sure. I don’t think it’s anything scary or overwhelming being compared to her because she’s such a great person and I just love that people are even saying it.

“Being compared to Ellyse Perry is obviously super cool but in the end, I still am my own person and I just try to do what I can.”

Like Perry, Bray knows a choice will eventually have to be made between cricket and football. And she’s looking forward to chewing her new captain’s ear off about the decision she made more than a decade ago.

But for now, the world of professional sport is Bray’s oyster as she prepares for the start of what could be an incredible career.

“I think if you told me that day at the (women’s T20) World Cup game that four years later I’d be playing in the WBBL, I would honestly not believe you,” Bray said.

“That day Ellyse actually got out for a golden duck and I remember Mum telling me that I was crying in the stands when that happened.

“There are so many big players in the team like Ash Gardner, Alyssa Healy and Ellyse Perry… and I think it’s taking tips off them and how they go about their cricket.

“A few of my school friends asked me, ‘When are you going to come back to school?’, and I’m like probably not this term.

“I’m seriously super grateful for the opportunity and absolutely take anything I can get.”

Originally published as WBBL 2024-25: 15 year-old Caoimhe Bray set for Sydney Sixers debut