Women's sport weekly wrap: Mitch Starc's bat shines for the Sydney Sixers

This week featured a good example of some very lazy journalism coming out of Cricket Australia.

Those who have been watching the WBBL will know that the Sydney Sixers are looking extremely strong, with only two weeks of the competition remaining.

At the moment, the Sixers sit on top of the WBBL ladder on 14 points, with seven wins and three losses.

There have been plenty of standout players for the team. Elyse Perry is currently the third highest run-scorer in the WBBL with 297 runs from her ten innings. Not far behind her is Ashleigh Gardner, who (despite only being 19) has shown maturity beyond her years this tournament, with 269 runs in her ten innings and a strike rate of 119.55.

While the Sixers’ batting has been exceptional, particularly their middle order, their bowling has also been top notch. Sarah Aley has taken the second most number of wickets in this year’s competition with best bowling figures of 3/13 and one of the best examples of fielding in the competition with a tremendous caught and bowled to dismiss Georgia Redmayne from the Hobart Hurricanes. Marizanne Capp has also taken 12 wickets (fourth highest in the league) with best figures of 2/13.

But, my stand-out player for the Sixers has been Alyssa Healy. Healy has been impressive with the gloves, with one of my favourite moments being when she dismissed Holly Ferling with a no-look flick ball on the final ball during a game at Drummoyne Oval.

She has also been extremely consistent opening the batting and has scored the third highest number of sixes in the competition so far. In the Sixers’ four-wicket win over the Scorchers on Monday afternoon, Healy scored 46 off 31 balls to add to the 241 runs she has already scored this season.

Following her knock against the Scorchers, Cricket Australia tweeted ‘even on a day off Mitchell Starc has managed to help impact a match’.

For those of you who don’t know, Alyssa is married to Australian cricketer Mitchell Starc. Apparently, because Alyssa borrowed Mitch’s bat, this was enough for a tweet suggestion that he had had an impact on the match.

When we think about the big issues facing women in sport, this is not a big deal, but I thought it was worth highlighting as an example of lazy journalism.

Consider this – in the Thunder’s game against the Hurricanes earlier this week, Carlos Braithwaite (the Thunder’s latest recruit) was wearing Pat Cummins’ shoes and was using Hayley Matthews’ bat. I saw neither one of these players credited for Braithwaite’s two wickets in three overs and six runs off four balls.

When reporting about men and women in sport, let’s try to apply consistent standards.

Tarsha Gale Nines
I know many of you – like me – cannot wait for rugby league to return. I’m counting down until the Auckland Nines but I’m also counting down until the 11 February, because that is the week the Tarsha Gale Nines Competition will start. For those of you who missed the announcement from New South Wales rugby league last year, this is the new under 18s women’s competition which will run alongside existing Junior Representative competition.

This competition is the NRL taking another step toward a fully-fledged women’s competition by building the talent pool for women who are interested in playing rugby league aged 17 or 18 in 2017. Previously there had been very few opportunities for women to play between the ages of 13 and 17. Without these women being given the opportunity to continue to play rugby league we have very little hope of retaining these women to participate in a women’s competition or to become our next Jillaroos.

I applaud the clubs that will be fielding teams – the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, Penrith Panthers, Cronulla Sharks, Canberra Raiders, South Sydney Rabbitohs, Parramatta Eels, Wests Tigers, Illawarra Steelers and Sydney Indigenous Academy.

Some of these teams are still looking for players so if you or someone you know is interested click here to get in contact with the right person.

W-League
Since their re-branding and introduction into the competition, Melbourne City have aimed to present themselves as a single united football club, giving their players the best facilities and opportunities no matter their gender.

Whether it’s building a training base for their W-League team or offering senior players an insight into the world of coaching, City have so far set the benchmark in Australian women’s football.

After the sudden resignation of Melbourne City’s A-League manager John van‘t Schip, the club decided to promote management staff from within, elevating assistant manager Michael Valkanis into the top job for the men’s team, and women’s manager and men’s coach Joe Montemurro to assistant manager of the men’s team on a full-time basis.

With Montemurro leading the men’s team on the training pitch, City took the unprecedented step of naming W-League captain Jess Fishlock as player-manager, making her the first player in either the A-League or W-League to hold such a role and one of three current female managers in the competition.

Her new role made official, Fishlock scored her team’s only goal in their hard-fought 1-1 draw against Sydney on Sunday afternoon, cancelling out a superb individual effort from recently-crowned AFC Women’s Player of the Year Caitlin Foord.

While City weren’t able to claim the three points, and are now winless in five matches, they showed signs of improvement against a disciplined Sydney outfit, with returning striker Larissa Crummer causing trouble for the Sydney backline and Fishlock herself fashioning a number of chances from midfield.

Speaking after the game, Fishlock said that keeping playing and coaching duties separate was simple once she stepped onto the pitch – “the job is done during the week so I can manage it, I can’t play and coach at the same time”.

With the resources of City Football Group at her disposal and an incredible knowledge of and passion for the game, Fishlock’s development as the team’s interim manager will be watched with keen interest by football fans in the coming months.