Sydney Sixers’ young star Caoimhe Bray is living and envisioning a dream professional life which only a few can manage. At just the age of 16 years, she’s already making heads turn in two competitive sports, cricket and soccer, and aims to follow the footsteps of legendary player and idol Ellyse Perry.
Bray grabbed headlines when she became the youngest player to claim a hat-trick in any major women’s T20 league during the ongoing WBBL season, in the game against Sydney Thunders. Even more impressive is that she’s achieving all this while still on restricted training loads because of her age.
Alongside cricket, she continues to attend junior Matildas camps and has even represented Australia as a goalkeeper in the Under-17 national team. Last winter, injuries kept her away from soccer for a while, and this season she chose to focus on the WBBL instead of the A-League Women after signing a three-year contract with the Sixers.
The talented teenager knows a day will come when she may have to choose between the two sports- but she’s in no rush. “I have to commit myself to the cricket for the summer part of the season. And when winter comes around, that’s when soccer comes back,” Bray said.
“So many people are asking the question will you still be playing soccer or still be playing cricket. People have their own opinions, like ‘go into cricket, surely’.
“But so much can change. I have the three years signed with the Sixers and so much can change over that period. If you don’t know the future, neither do I. I don’t know what it will be like in a few years. But I am going to try and stick to (doing both) as much as I can.”
Her journey mirrors Perry’s remarkable dual-career story, and Bray says it still feels unreal to share the same dressing room as someone she has grown up admiring. She tries not to overwhelm Perry with questions, but the excitement is clear.
What makes Bray’s rise even more special is that she’s doing it on reduced programs designed to protect her developing body. Before the season, she trained only twice a week with New South Wales (NSW) Breakers instead of the usual four sessions, and she’s still not allowed to bowl a full ten-over spell in 50-over cricket.
“There were things during the Breakers pre-season I didn’t do compared to others, just because of my age,” Bray explained. “It was just like there is no point for you to do it. They said: ‘you are changing so much in terms of height and body’.
‘You don’t want to overwork too much because that is when you break down. They are trying to look out for that,’” she concluded.
(Quotes sourced from AAP)
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