Aussie cricket star Tayla Vlaeminck grew up playing the sport with her brother and his friends and like most kids dreamed of ‘making it’ to be like the heroes she’d see on TV and on cereal boxes at the supermarket.
But when Vlaeminck was younger there wasn’t any women’s cricket being shown on TV, and pursuing the sport as a profession didn’t seem like a viable option.
In 2021, that has all changed with the greater investment, exposure, and popularity of women’s sport in recent years. And nothing could signal that more than Vlaeminck, the 2020 Young Cricketer of the Year, who has been chosen as one of four elite Australian female athletes to appear on a Cadbury packet as part of its Women in Sport initiative.
“It didn’t sink in till I actually saw the block. I never thought that would happen,” Vlaeminck told Wide World of Sports from hotel quarantine as the Southern Stars ready for their multi-format series against India starting on September 21.
“You think of Brett Lee on Weet-Bix, but you never think it’ll happen to you. It’s still sinking in.
“If I could choose anything to have my face on it’d be a block of chocolate. It’s pretty cool and I’m a big chocolate fan. It’s very dangerous.”
Vlaeminck said she had been inundated by messages from supportive family and friends who have rushed to buy the limited edition blocks off the shelves which also feature Richmond AFLW star Akec Makur Chuot, Matildas defender Alanna Kennedy, and Sydney Roosters’ NRLW centre Jessica Sergis in a move to celebrate women in sport, as well as the issues still faced.
Beside images of these sports stars sits a poignant stat that reads: ‘One in two girls drop out of sport from age 15 – Because how can you be what you can’t see?’
“It’s all about actually having female athletes on display – we see them in the media and on the TV – and I think cricket have done really well showing more games so young girls can turn the TV on and see that. Go back five or 10 years and that isn’t the case,” Vlaeminck said.
“If you’re walking down the supermarket aisles and see female athletes on a chocolate block, it shows progress and it’s really exciting.”
The initiative also shares the message to ‘Get in the game’, but Vlaeminck knows that when you’re a girl starting out in a male-dominated sport, it’s not always as simple as just wanting to play.
“There were no girls teams available when I was younger so I played cricket with my younger brother. I was really lucky I had him because I knew his mates and it made it a lot easier for me. But for a lot of young girls out there It can be a major deterrent to play – having to sit around for four or five hours with no other girls in your team can be a pretty daunting experience,” Vlaeminck said.
The times they are a-changing though, and the 22-year-old hopes the momentum doesn’t stop now.
“The fact I can go home and drive past four or five different girls teams playing, that just shows how far it’s come. It gives people the opportunity to keep pursuing the game and not stop because they feel uncomfortable with those barriers,” she said.
“The more that the game gets exposed, and not just cricket, the more exposure, the more opportunity for girls leagues and that keeps them in the game longer.”
The all-rounder believes these recent gains all have a flow-on effect in the professional ranks too.
“From a cricket perspective, it makes you want to work a lot harder because you know it’s a much more professional product and a lot more people are interested in the game,” Vlaeminck explained.
“Then you get more sponsorship opportunities as the game grows and it feeds back into getting it out there more and more people see it and you want to work harder again to make it even better.
“So you just want to keep improving your game because that’s going to encourage more young girls to stick with it if they can see a really quality product.”
Vlaeminck has battled a few injury hurdles in her short, but rapidly blossoming cricket career, and is excited by what the future holds for her and her sport. Vlaeminck’s next focus is the upcoming series against India, starting in under two weeks.
As she and her teammates enter day 12 of hotel quarantine following COVID-19 protocols, they are itching to get out and play on home soil again following a pandemic-impacted couple of years.
“It’s been a really long time since we played. We had a long pre-season so everyone is ready to get into training and have a crack,” Vlaeminck said.
“The Indian girls have come fresh off a series in England and they were playing some really good cricket so there’s going to be some tough matches, but we are really looking forward to it.
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“It’s obviously been difficult and there’s been times it’s hard to keep the motivation up [during the COVID-19 pandemic] but the way Cricket Australia have kept our series going and put so much work in to make sure things like this come up, it’s been pretty awesome.
“Hopefully when we get out there we can put a smile on some faces and put on a show.
“It’s been an interesting couple of years with injuries but I’m hoping that’s in the past now and I’m looking forward to contributing on the field this summer. We’ve got a really big summer lined up, the series against India pretty much immediately followed by Big Bash and then an Ashes series, so there’s going to be a lot of cricket to come.”
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