Already winning hearts at the international platform, CricHiit is an initiative taken by Cricket Scotland to increase women’s participation in the game of cricket. CricHiit caught eyeballs of the cricket fraternity when Cricket Scotland won the award recently for ‘Innovation of the Year’ at the Annual ICC Development Awards.
ICC Development Awards are held to recognize and appreciate individuals and organizations across the member nations for promoting and contributing to the growth of the sport of cricket. The member countries submit nominations and the winners are chosen among those nominations in the annual conference held each year. This year the annual conference was held in London from 15th to 18th July where Scotland Cricket won the award for ‘Innovation of the Year’ for CricHiit.
CricHIIT is designed to impart cricketing skills along with fitness development in the women participants. CricHIIT is a combination of basic cricket skills and High-Intensity Interval Training (Hiit). High-Intensity Interval Training involves intense exercise for brief periods along with brief periods for recovery.
CricHIIT is the brainchild of Rosy Ryan, a Development Officer at Cricket Scotland. Among others that need to be given credit for the success of CricHIIT are Nic Payne Wilson, Cricket Scotland’s head of participation, Simon Smith (writer of the program), Ian Sandbrook and many more.
The cricket clubs in Scotland that host CricHIIT sessions are:
In West of Scotland: Dumfries Cricket Club, Clydesdale Cricket Club, Uddingston Cricket Club, Galloway Cricket Club
In East of Scotland: Edinburgh South Cricket Club, Carlton Cricket Club, Watsonians Cricket Club, Gala Cricket Club
In South Caledonia: Strathmore Cricket Club, Brechin Cricket Club, Forfarshire Cricket Club, Perth Doo’cot Cricket Club, Sterling Cricket Club, Westquarter Cricket Club
Forfarshire Cricket Club in the history of its 139 years of existence did not have any women section until now. But now with CricHIIT and softball cricket, they have a women section. In recent times, cricket associations of different member countries are coming forward with different programs to promote cricket among women of all ages. MAD (Mothers and Daughters) Program by ICC Americas in America Region is a program where women of all ages come and play cricket together. Recently, Samoa saw a 400% increase in women’s participation in cricket. Now, with CricHIIT women participation is definitely going to hit new highs in the world of cricket in the coming times.