Scotland international Chloe Abel is spending the winter in her home state, Tasmania, continuing her cricket development alongside her university education.
Abel, who made her debut against Italy in the Women’s T20 World Cup Europe Qualifier in September, will be detailing her experiences down under throughout the winter on cricketscotland.com:
I had two sporting wins this Sunday, on the field with New Town, but also on the golf course as I won my club championship!
Golf is a major passion of mine now, my mum was a really good club golfer, so I learnt from her a lot, and got some clubs for my 18th birthday, and got really stuck into it from there.
I find that golf has quite a few relationships with cricket in the mental aspect of the game, as you don’t have much room for failure, and if you miss by a tiny amount, you’ve either hooked it or sliced it.
It definitely works my brain in a similar way that cricket does, but at the same time it is something different so does provide that balance where the focus is entirely on cricket.
It was my second go at the club championship, so I didn’t really have any expectations going into it, but I shot 37 to break 40 on the front nine for the first time, and I had my first eagle, so it was a good day!
Over the last week I’ve been involved in a couple of intrasquad practice matches with Tasmania, and I feel like I’ve been performing well. I took three wickets yesterday which was great, and it’s been good to keep working on game situations and being able to play alongside better players as well.
We go to Adelaide on Monday for a couple of 50 over fixtures, on Tuesday and Thursday, so that will be good to show what I can do with the domestic 50 over competition starting in about a month or so.
I was up at Launceston on Monday to watch the Hurricanes in the WBBL with a couple of the girls from New Town.
They have been struggling a bit this year, but came very close on Monday to pulling off the win against the Sydney Sixers; I’m hoping now that they’re chances of making the finals are pretty much over that they gave some opportunities to a couple of the other girls in the squad.
The WBBL has certainly made a positive impact on Australian cricket over the years, and it has got more professional as more money and sponsorships have been invested into it.
It’s been great to have so many internationals in the league, and be able to go and watch them play, and if you’re surrounding your younger players with world class cricketers, they’re only going to benefit from the conversations that they can have.
Kathryn Bryce has been with us for a couple of weeks now, and it’s been great having her back around.
She was over for dinner last night and we were just at training together today; she’s a quality person and a quality player and it’s great to have someone like her around the group at New Town.
She’s always been someone who’s wanted to help younger players continue to develop, and help everyone improve, so she brings lots of good energy to the team.
After I return from Adelaide, my three-week nursing work placement starts.
I’ll be working at the Whittle Ward, a palliative care ward at the hospital, and that’s something I haven’t experienced before, so it will be a great opportunity to continue to develop my skills as a nurse.
I’ll see some good things and some bad things, but I think being able to help people with end-of-life care is super important, just trying to make them as comfortable as possible.
I always love the opportunities that placements brings to be able to go out there and feel part of the workforce and that you’re starting to help people, especially as you go through the different placements across each year.
It can be a challenge to balance the placements with cricket as it is exhausting, the early shifts can be tough because they feel like they take up the full day, and it can be tough to get back and have the energy to go to training, especially if it’s been a rough day.
But it do always find that it does help being able to go training afterwards, and it helps to provide that balance in your life where you’re not totally consumed by one aspect of what you’re doing.
