Young star Darcie Brown has been included in the list of Cricket Australia’s contracted players for the year 2021-22, and interestingly, she is the only new face this year to be awarded the contract. This happened after Delissa Kimmince announced her retirement from top-level cricket.
Brown is currently the youngest player in the squad to earn a full-year contract, being just 18-years-old. Shawn Flegler, high-performance manager, and national selector had once called her “the fastest bowler in the country”. Brown made her debut during Australia’s tour of New Zealand and proved to be a very important asset for the team.
“Darcie is an incredibly exciting fast-bowling talent, as we saw on the recent T20I and ODI tour of New Zealand, and she has consistently been the fastest bowler in the country as shown by our testing around the states,” Flegler was quoted saying.
“She’s had tremendous raw pace throughout the junior ranks, and we think she has the potential to form an excellent new-ball partnership with Tayla Vlaeminck for many years to come,” he added.
Before making her international debut, she had played Adelaide Strikers in the Women’s Big Bash League last season, at the age of 17, and picked up 10 wickets with 5.52 being her economy rate.
After her performance in the series, she was praised by the team’s captain Meg Lanning and by coach Ryan Harris. He had shown a lot of faith and belief in the youngster and was very confident of her making it big for the team. Brown claimed her first T20I wicket in the series when she picked France Mackay who was also the top scorer for the White Ferns.
Cricket Australia women’s contract list, 2021-22: Darcie Brown, Nicola Carey, Ashleigh Gardner, Rachael Haynes, Alyssa Healy, Jess Jonassen, Meg Lanning, Tahlia McGrath, Sophie Molineux, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Tayla Vlaeminck, Georgia Wareham
I’m a Senior Masters student pursuing Journalism and Mass Communication. An all time Cricket enthusiast. I could never play the game but always loved watching it, and now writing about it!
