ACT Meteors captain Erin Osborne is confident the new WNCL schedule will bring better cricket and better fan engagement to the competition.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
The Meteors have ramped up their focus on community engagement in the hope more people will attend games when the summer of cricket begins.
The Meteors are trying to capitalise on the growth of women's cricket, which has been bolstered by the Big Bash and the successful Ashes campaign earlier this year.
"One of our values is community, so next week we are going to do a community blitz to try to promote cricket to young boys and girls and hopefully attract a crowd at our games this year," Osborne said.
The change of schedule will give the WNCL a new dimension this season and players are excited about having more games.
The new format means two extra games for each team before the Big Bash Twenty20 competition and then returning for the last six WNCL games from January.
This has been welcome change for Osborne, who said the two WNCL games to start the year will be important for the Meteors.
"This is our home and we want to feel a part of the community and for that we needed our WNCL games to be first up otherwise Big Bash franchises could have potentially asked us to relocate," said Osborne, who will play for the Melbourne Stars in the Twenty20 competition.
"Only having six [WNCL] games in previous years means if you lost one game it makes it quite difficult, pretty much means your season is over."
"Moving forward, we would still like to have a home and away series so that there are more games, which is important for developing the next Australian cricketers."
The Meteors will start their season with a road trip double against Victoria and South Australia in Adelaide on September 22 and 24.
They will resume the WNCL campaign with a daunting clash against NSW before hosting the last four games of the season against Queensland, NSW, Tasmania and Western Australia.
