She was the Ellyse Perry of New Zealand women's sport, balancing elite level soccer and cricket, but White Ferns international bat Sara McGlashan is coming to Canberra this summer to add more firepower to the ACT Meteors women's cricket team.
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McGlashan will be one of three international representatives this season, joining pace spearheads Nicola Browne, of New Zealand, and Rene Farrell, of Australia.
McGlashan was a New Zealand Under 19s soccer international and played a season in the national league before turning her focus to cricket. The 32-year-old wicketkeeper-batter has played 180 internationals since 2002 and will tour West Indies with the New Zealand squad next month, before joining the Meteors in October.
The Meteors were runners-up in last summer's national T20 competition, and coach Andrew Dawson said McGlashan's class at the top of the order would give the ACT even more strikepower.
"Having that extra bat with a lot of international experience gives us a bit more firepower to consistently take on the benchmark sides likes NSW and Victoria," Dawson said.
"We're trying to develop this mentality of no fear ... moving away from the mindset of being underdogs, or rejects from the biggers states with a point to prove. It's about standing on our own two feet and having an expectation to perform."
McGlashan is the younger sister of New Zealand cricket representative Peter McGlashan.
Given they grew up playing backyard cricket with an upturned trampoline as the backstop behind the wicket, McGlashan said it was funny how they'd both developed into wicketkeeper-batters.
"I also don't know how I became a batter because I was doing most of the bowling in the backyard," McGlashan said.
"Cricket was in the blood, as a youngster I was running around chasing my brother to training. When you're a little sister, you just run around doing everything big brother is doing, so I got involved with cricket that way."
Like Browne, McGlashan has represented New Zealand at two World Cups. It was Browne, who joined the Meteors last summer, who helped lure McGlashan to Canberra.
Between Browne, McGlashan and Farrell, the Meteors boast more than 400 matches of international experience.
"Nicola sent me a message and asked if I'd be interested," McGlashan said. "She told me about the season last year, how much she enjoyed it and the environment they're trying to create. It sounded really good and something I'm keen to be part of.
"The Meteors had a pretty good season making that T20 final. In any team environment, once you get a taste for it it gives you that confidence to know that you're capable of, knocking off the bigger states with the bigger reputations. It's really exciting."
