Two Australian hockey stars sign up for WBBL

Following in the footsteps of Australian tennis star Ash Barty who made a brief switch to cricket by signing up for Brisbane Heat for the inaugural Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) season in 2015, two members of the Australian women’s hockey team – Kate Hollywood Mathilda Carmichael – have signed up for the second edition of the WBBL.

While 30-year-old Hollywood, a two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist and a member of the Australian Women’s hockey team at the 2008 Olympics, may have seen her best years in her original sport of choice pass by, Carmichael, 22, is hoping to pursue a career in both hockey and cricket, going forward. Carmichael, in fact, is no stranger to the sport of cricket, having been an accomplished young cricketer in New South Wales’ junior squads before switching over to hockey nearly four years ago.

However, since being overlooked for the national hockey squad for the 2016 Rio Olympics, Carmichael has been actively involved in cricket, scoring 337 runs in six games in Female A Grade 50-over cricket last season for Melville Cricket Club. The way she performed was so impressive that the Western Fury signed her up for the 2016-17 Women’s National Cricket League season.

Carmichael will undoubtedly have her biggest test yet in cricket when she locks horns with the most talented cricketers in the country during the WBBL where she will be representing the Perth Scorchers, but the 22-year-old is setting the bar high for herself claiming that she hopes to emulate the famous Australian sportswoman Ellyse Perry, who is the only Australian to have appeared in both cricket and association football World Cups.

"If I get opportunities to play higher levels of hockey again for Australia, I’m definitely still striving for that," she said. "Hopefully along the way I balance both of them, but obviously I’m just focusing on one thing at a time. With the success of the Big Bash last season for the women, I think WBBL02 will be another success."

Hollywood meanwhile said that she has reached that point in her life where time is running out to try new things and that as an athlete, she was always looking forward to testing herself against new challenges.

"I will always sign up for anything and have a crack at it. That’s the best thing about being an athlete, being able to test yourself and try different things,” Hollywood said, adding that she finds a lot of similarities between the two sports and is hopeful that cricket provides the same experience of togetherness and team spirit that hockey has given her over the years.

"Cricket is an exciting sport, I think it is very similar to hockey which is a sport I obviously love, especially the hand-eye coordination," she said. "Since playing hockey, and being around that team environment, it is something that I’ve loved about the sport. I think cricket is very similar – it’s a nice team feel, you always celebrate together and the team cohesion is important.”