“How can a girl play cricket?”

“Keep away the bat!”

“Give the ball to your brother and take this doll!”

I am totally sure you may have heard at least one of the above sayings if you are a citizen in Sri Lanka. So, this is our own mission, through the project “FeMale” we hope to eradicate such notions from the society. There are so many renowned personalities who have won the world in spite of being female. One such striking personality, is Ellyse Perry.  

She at the age of 16 represented her country; Australia by being selected to the national cricket team and national soccer team as well. It is a highlighting fact that she has succeeded in her studies too, as she has studied Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney.

Despite of being a girl, she became the youngest Australian ever to play senior international cricket. Although born in 1990, at the moment she is widely considered to be one of the greatest female players ever.

Just think what might have happened if all the others around her pushed her to be a “traditional girl”, Australia may have lost such a wonderful player.

  Despite having never played a match at senior level , she made her one day international (ODI) debut at Darwin at the age of 16 years, being the youngest-ever  cricketer to represent Australia. Convincing all her talents she played marvelously on Twenty20 International debut, which was against England.

Perry was named as one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Decade (2010-19). Proving her talents again and again, Perry was unveiled as the winner of the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Award for ICC Female Cricketer of the Decade, while also claiming both the ODI and T20I Cricketer of the Decade awards.

Not only the team awards, but many other awards have been received by her for individual performances. Guess what? If I start writing them, it seems unlikely that I finish writing about all those awards! Moreover, she has been involved in various projects that were broadcasted on various media. In addition, she was ranked the most marketable Australian athlete in 2013 by SportsPro magazine.

She has also appeared in both ICC and FIFA World Cups. Perry is considered as an all-rounder as a result of the mastery she showed in batting as well as in bowling. For an instance, she was the first player to amass a combined 1000 runs along with 100 wickets in T20Is. Furthermore, she holds the record for the highest score by an Australian Woman in Test matches with the score of two hundred and thirteen-not out (213*)

 According to my understanding this should be taken into consideration from two aspects;

• First the traditional notions of the people around girls should be changed.
• Then as the next step, girls must also try hard to convince that they are capable of accomplishing what they want. In other words then only the girls will be able to satisfy the people who let them change, according to their own wishes without any restrictions.

Then only we would be able to establish the vital notions of Gender Equality.

All in all, then the change we ourselves wanted to make as the Team I -Female , would be accomplished!

                                                                    

  Written by Rtr.Jayamuni  Kaveesha Thushani de Silva

Rota Tomorrow team I- “Female“