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“These are exciting times for girls cricket” – Women’s Pathway summer review
Kieran Peters, Pathway Coach and Women & Girls Lead at Somerset CCC ,has just ended his second full season in post.
Reflecting on the summer of 2024, Kieran said: “It has been another very enjoyable season with lots of really good cricket being played throughout and hopefully lots of learnings and development.
“Across all the age groups there have been lots of positives that we can take away and I’m really excited now to be transitioning back into the winter programme.
“We’ve seen a significant increase in the numbers across the last year and there will be a further increase again into this year, which has meant that we have been able to facilitate more cricket across the whole Pathway.
“The increased numbers have enabled us to introduce our Wyvern Squads at Under 13s and Under 16s which has meant that it has created more depth within the Pathway and more opportunity for players.”
Kieran went on: “As we transition into this next year, we are going to be introducing an Under 12 squad as well, which means we will have age group teams at Under 11,12, 13,15 and 18.
“This next year we will have more players in our Under 11s and Under 12s than we had in the whole Pathway when I first started, so there has been quite a big change around how things operate in just over two years.
“The Under 18s girls have done really well in 2024 and its felt like a two-year project for this age group because in 2023 it was a very young squad and it’s be great to see those players continue to develop over the two years.
“Last year was a really tough year but, in the winter, they continued to work really hard and there’s been lots of good learnings as a group. What that meant is that they have come back and competed well on the field.
“They got through to the semi-final in the national 50-over knock out competition and then finished third in the national T20, so in terms of outcome, they have had a really good year and been an awesome group to be a part of.
“This year we will lose some players who are now too old, but we have also got lots who are going to continue to be part of the squad and some good U15’s moving up as well.
“These are exciting times for girls cricket and as we transition into this winter it’s the start of Somerset being a Tier One side.”
Kieran added: “We’re all looking forward to this development and also to having that alignment to a Tier One professional county is something that you can’t really underestimate the importance of.”
