It was December 2015 and Meg Lanning was in for an enormous day.
At an overcast Junction Oval, she pulled on her Melbourne Stars package and wiped zinc throughout the bridge of her nostril in preparation for a double-header.
Ten months earlier, Lanning stood alongside Ellyse Perry as Cricket Australia unveiled its plans to launch a Girls’s Massive Bash League.
This transfer, they hoped, would develop the profile and professionalism of the sport, inspiring ladies and women throughout the nation to select up a bat or ball.
Eight groups had been agreed on to reflect the lads’s metropolis franchises, and the wheels had been in movement.
Ellyse Perry of the Sydney Sixers hits a ball into the harbour at Luna Park. (Getty Pictures: Mark Kolbe)
Squads had been signed and the inaugural season was launched with a photograph shoot at Sydney’s Luna Park, the place gamers hit tennis balls off a barge into the harbour.
For many who had lengthy been toiling away for his or her state within the 50-over Girls’s Nationwide Cricket League, the kits had been brighter, the contracts larger, and the stakes increased than ever earlier than.
Lanning had been busy within the lead-up, guiding the nationwide facet to victory within the Ashes.
Individually, she’d had a superb tour highlighted by a century in Bristol and had propelled up the ICC rankings to change into the world’s finest feminine batter.
Lanning strikes the ball as Beth Mooney retains behind. (Getty: Michael Dodge)
Now she was residence on Australian soil and desperate to see if the WBBL wouldn’t it reside as much as the hype.
Lanning received the toss in each opening matches towards the Brisbane Warmth and claimed consecutive Participant of the Match awards in a matter of hours.
The Stars went undefeated after she’d reached 90 runs and 75 not out throughout the 2 video games.
It was a groundbreaking time for girls’s sport and but, there are just a few key indicators of how far the sport has come whenever you look again on at the present time.
Ash Barty kisses her Wimbledon trophy. (Getty: Clive Brunskill)
Groups now not play double-headers, nor does the WBBL run in the identical window because the BBL.
Ash Barty featured for the Warmth throughout her tennis sabbatical, earlier than we knew her as an Australian Open, Wimbledon and French Open champion.
Lanning is pictured sitting in a camp chair along with her teammate and sister Anna.
And there’s a very small crowd on the floor principally consisting of gamers’ household and mates.
The WBBL crowds had been humble to start, however have grown dramatically over 10 years. (Getty: Michael Dodge)
Simply 10 matches had been televised and sadly this was not one in all them, so there is no footage accessible for us to look at these iconic matches.
Examine that with the upcoming season 10, the place each match shall be broadcast reside.
“The WBBL is so completely different now,” Lanning informed ABC Sport.
“Enjoying the identical staff twice in in the future was unusual – working out on the sphere within the morning, consuming lunch in between after which going out to do it once more that afternoon.
“On the time, we did not suppose an excessive amount of about it as a result of it was new and thrilling.
“You can inform it was the beginning of one thing huge.”
Meg and Anna Lanning wait to bat throughout WBBL01 in Melbourne. (Getty: Michael Dodge)
Lanning completed because the main run scorer that season (560), with the best common (56).
Requested if she might think about sitting in a camp chair ready to bat in 2024, Lanning chuckled.
“No, no … I’ve seen this picture just a few occasions, it is one in all my favourites.
“I’ve bought some nice recollections from the beginning of the WBBL.
“There have been dangers Cricket Australia took, not understanding how profitable it was going to be.
Ash Barty forward of her WBBL debut. (Getty: Michael Dodge)
“T20 has been such a driver to draw followers and improve participation, so it is sensible … however there have been questions on whether or not there was sufficient depth to fill eight groups.
“I assume you have to begin someplace, and it has actually paid off 10 years down the monitor.”
So, how did the Stars put together techniques for Barty all these years in the past?
The 19-year-old tennis prodigy had performed only one WNCL match for Queensland forward of her WBBL debut, so she was a little bit of an enigma.
Within the first match, Barty tallied 39 runs batting sixth.
It will find yourself being her highest rating earlier than her cricket profession petered out.
“We did not know what plans to provide you with, as a result of she hadn’t performed a hell of quite a lot of cricket,” Lanning mentioned.
“She did fairly properly within the first match, hit just a few boundaries and took on the sport, so it was a studying curve for us as a lot because it was for her.
“In saying that, she did not look misplaced — it’s humorous to suppose she was there for the very first WBBL sport earlier than happening to do such unimaginable issues in tennis.”
Twin-code star Ash Barty hits a ball for the Brisbane Warmth. (Getty: Michael Dodge)
Maybe the simplest option to assess the progress of the competitors is by numbers.
Again then, the common wage for a main squad member was roughly $5,700.
Now, it’s just below $49,000.
Moreover, the common feminine home cricketer in Australia and not using a nationwide contract earns roughly $163,000 from their WNCL state and WBBL commitments.
Lanning has retired from internationals however remains to be extremely wanted for franchise cricket.
She has performed within the Indian Girls’s Premier League and The Hundred within the UK.
The WPL has supplied large taking part in contracts in India. (Getty Pictures: Pankaj Nangia)
However Lanning says nothing compares to the aggressive nature of the Australian league.
“It has helped the youthful gamers come into the Australian facet extra ready, as from the WBBL they’ve already discovered how they will make that affect right away,” she mentioned.
“Rivalries have been constructed up with different groups, which provides to it too.
“You recognize the video games are being watched by lots of people, in order that lifts the competitiveness and everybody’s capacity to carry out below strain.
“What we have achieved has pushed different nations to create their very own leagues and improve help for his or her feminine gamers to maintain up — that is been nice for the sport worldwide.
“However the one factor that continues to be, is the depth of expertise and the calibre of abroad gamers that wish to be concerned within the WBBL – that is what makes it distinctive.”
Kapp will play for her fourth WBBL staff this summer time on the Stars. (Getty: Jan Kruger)
Thirty-five gamers have been contracted on a membership checklist throughout all 10 seasons, together with Lanning, present nationwide captain Alyssa Healy and her vice Tahlia McGrath.
In addition to South African all-rounder Marizanne Kapp and New Zealand captain Sophie Devine.
Government basic supervisor Alistair Dobson informed ABC Sport that it is the high quality of cricket and the athletes’ tales — like Barty taking part in in these first video games — which were a catalyst for achievement.
Appointed head of the Massive Bash Leagues in 2019, proper earlier than the primary standalone ladies’s season, Dobson will once more be on the helm because the WBBL takes its subsequent huge leap to bigger stadiums.
“The standalone window gave the ladies clear air and prime-time protection,” he mentioned.
“It has been an amazing evolution and so will our transfer into tier-one stadiums this season.
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“Within the early days the WBBL did play there in double-headers with the lads’s.
“Our view is that it’s the finest ladies’s league on the earth and so it deserves to be showcased in the most effective stadiums, at Australian iconic venues just like the MCG and SCG.
“Our gamers really feel an actual sense of possession of this competitors as a result of they’ve grown with it over a decade and that makes for an unimaginable legacy.”
The WBBL season 10 begins October 27 at Adelaide Oval, with a last re-match between the Strikers and the Warmth.
ABC Sport shall be broadcasting the sport reside by means of the ABC Pay attention app.
