Katelyn Fryett says she has some fond memories of the North-West Coast, feelings which are likely to grow if her Hobart Hurricanes can have a successful weekend against the Melbourne Stars.
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The 26-year-old from Bracknell played at West Park as part of the Tasmanian Roar side in the early stages of her career, and also has family connections to this part of the world.
“It will be nice to go back there,’’ the pace bowler admitted on Tuesday.
“We played up there when we were the Roar, maybe five or six years seasons ago and had a little bit of success, but we are just very excited to branch out and really become ‘Tasmania’s Team’ and take this (WBBL) brand of cricket to the people of the North-West Coast.
“I think that is really important as we need to try to attract girls from right around the state (to cricket), and this just shows that the pathway is there and that girls can make it their profession no matter what area of the state they come from.
“And having this home crowd support will be massive for us.”
Fryett and her teammates will come to the Coast off the back of a six-wicket loss to the Perth Scorchers on Saturday, a result that went into the final over.
“It was tough, but we did a lot of things in that game well,’’ she recalled.
“Going in knowing we didn’t have our full-strength side (with Hayley Matthews injured and Heather Knight and Smriti Mandhana unavailable) and being able to test some of the best players in the world for as long as we did was really pleasing.
“If we had performed a little better in a few other areas we would have been in with a chance to take the win. It was disappointing, but very pleasing moving forward. We get our internationals in this round knowing how we performed without them, which is really exciting and a huge positive.”
Fryett said the ‘Canes would feel comfortable coming up against the Stars having played them in two practice matches before the Scorchers contest, a team that will feature South Africa’s Lizelle Lee, who smashed 102 from 56 against the Sixers.
”I think with any strong batter, they are going to hit good shots, so as a bowler and a fielding team you’ve got to make sure you are changing it up as much as possible,’’ Fryett said.
The availability or otherwise of Matthews, who fractured her toe on Friday, has yet to be confirmed.
Saturday’s game will be at 2pm and Sunday’s at 10.30am.