A Journey of Passion and Pride
Every week for the past five months, Caitlyn Henry has driven two and a half hours from her home in Mount Garnet in Far North Queensland to play cricket in Cairns. This dedication is part of her commitment to prepare for the National Indigenous Cricket Championships (NICC), which will be held in Mackay this week. Since competing in the State Indigenous Challenge in November, she has been training hard to represent her state.
“It’s been rough,” she laughed. While she admitted she doesn’t like traveling so far “that much,” it was worth the opportunity to don the maroon jersey. “My family were super excited, really proud of me, now they see me wearing the Queensland shirt,” Ms Henry said. “I feel like a proud Indigenous woman to be wearing this.”
A Decade of Growth and Opportunity
The NICC is celebrating its 10th year in its current form and the second year it has been hosted on Yuwibara Country. The competition features women’s and men’s teams from almost every state, with this year marking the inclusion of Papua New Guinea’s national team, the Barramundis.
Queensland women’s team manager and mentor, Tamika Hansen, emphasized that the tournament is about more than just cricket. “The mighty maroon jersey is a very big privilege in our state, no matter what sport,” she said. “But we are here to represent our families first and foremost. We are playing within not only the spirit of cricket but also as Indigenous people.”
Ms Hansen has seen the championship evolve over the past decade, starting before Queensland even had a women’s team. She knows how much the players are putting in. “Some girls in remote communities have to travel hours, and that’s not just travelling, that’s finding the means of a car and paying for fuel,” she said.
Reflecting on the past 10 years, she was glad to see changes in opportunities available to young, Indigenous players. “It’s been quite incredible to see … the young ones nowadays have a lot of support around them,” Ms Hansen said. “I can’t imagine what the game will be in 10 years’ time.”
While she acknowledged the progress made in reaching Indigenous players in regional and remote areas, she believes broader change is still needed. “I think we can always do more as a society, and in sport, with stamping out racism and providing better culturally appropriate pathways for Indigenous people,” she said.
An Essential Pathway
The roots of the National Indigenous Cricket Championships go back to a cricket match between Alice Springs and Tennant Creek in the 1990s. Cricket Australia took over running the competition in 2001 and made it a national tournament. The championships provide younger players with an opportunity to meet and compete against big names in Australian cricket.
NSW player and coach, Patrick Rosser, highlighted the tournament as part of Cricket Australia’s high-performance pathways program. “Being picked up by other premier clubs is another opportunity,” he said. “In previous years, we’ve seen particularly some of our women players go through and play in the WBBL and to play for Australia.”
This year is especially special for Mr Rosser, as his son James is playing in the NSW side. James said he had made the trip to Mackay last year but hadn’t pictured himself picking up the bat so soon. “I thought I’d maybe get a chance to do it a bit later on, but not at 16,” he said.
Northern Territory squad member Bradley Ilott described the tournament as a “full-circle moment” for him, after spending much of his childhood in Mackay. “With cricket being played during the dry season [in the NT], it just gives you that unique experience you don’t get in most of the southern states,” he said.
He noted that the week in Mackay included several cultural-engagement sessions where teams discussed the championships and how they’d like to see the competition progress. “It’s all one large brotherhood or sisterhood up here,” Mr Ilott said. “We’re all proud to be out here, not just [for] our state but our people back home, our mobs.”
The Next Generation
For Ms Henry, the championships are also an opportunity to show young, aspiring cricketers in her hometown that there are viable pathways. “Some younger people from home are getting into cricket, they love it as well, they want to go far,” she said. “It would be pretty good seeing them if they come as far as I am.”
