The cricket dream for Erin Osborne began as a seven-year-old one weekend in Tamworth, but she never envisioned it would be possible to make it a career in her lifetime.
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She sat in the car, like most weekends in summer, watching her father coach her older brother, before it planted the seed for a 13-year professional career.
"They were short of players and I just got dragged across," she laughed.
"It was a horrible game ... but for some reason I enjoyed it. That was my first encounter with cricket and I absolutely loved it."
Some 25 years later and the 32-year-old will line up for her final game of professional cricket at Phillip Oval on Sunday.
The ACT Meteors all-rounder will have played in 94 WNCL matches after her last game against Western Australia.
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She said she did not know yet how she would approach the game, knowing it was her last and her family would be on the sidelines.
"It's been a real emotional week, a real draining one," she said.
"I'm trying to ride it as much as I can and go with the moments. I'm trying to approach it like it's any other game but I think that's probably unrealistic. So I'm just going to go with the moments and whatever happens on the day happens."
The time was right for the right-arm off-break bowler to finish up with the likes of Alisha Bates and Annie Wikman, the next generation of Meteors, making their debut.
She did consider calling time after the WBBL season but decided to continue on for one more domestic season with the ACT.
"I'm thankful I've done it," she said.
"It's been a great year and they're a great bunch of girls. It's the right time for me but also for the playing group to step aside and give someone else an opportunity."
Since making the move to Canberra from the NSW Breakers back in 2015, she has seen the transformation of Phillip Oval and the Cricket ACT facilities.
"I remember our winter trials and trainings in a school, and running through a car park over a kerb ... and trying to bowl," she said.
"Not in my time [did I think I could make a career out of it], I always hoped for it. I remember playing in the backyard and just going, 'what a dream this would be to able to train full time and play cricket'. To come here and now see it all coming to fruition, with the girls able to play cricket pretty much in a full-time capacity ... it's really important."
Osborne did make a full time career out of it, amounting a 13-year domestic career and an international career for Australia across all three formats from 2009 to 2016.
She took 121 wickets and scored 515 runs for the national team, and she said donning the baggy green in England was the highlight of her career.
"To receive that over in England was pretty special, and to take four wickets on the first day as well," she said.
"I told mum and dad pretty early on I wanted to play cricket for Australia.
"I'm sure most kids tell their parents that and they probably go, 'yeah, OK', but dad was down in the nets with me everyday.
"There's been some real lows and highs in my career, and trying to keep my spot in that Australian team was a real battle for me but one that I'll look back on and cherish that's for sure."
Isobel Cootes
Sports reporter at The Canberra Times. A Novocastrian with a passion for football (or soccer as they call it in the capital) via The Examiner and The Port Lincoln Times.
Sports reporter at The Canberra Times. A Novocastrian with a passion for football (or soccer as they call it in the capital) via The Examiner and The Port Lincoln Times.
