00:00I'm Grace Pearson, Head of Delivery and Development at the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation.
00:04Today we're at Crossgates Cricket Club in Leeds for the ICC Women's World Cup T20 2026 Trophy Tour
00:12and we're here to celebrate the World Cup and we've got a number of teams playing tapeball cricket
00:19and a number of under 11 girls playing roses cricket which is dynamos aged 8 to 11.
00:24The ICC Women's T20 World Cup coming to England this summer kicking off on the 12th of June.
00:31Across Yorkshire we've got five fixtures starting on the 17th of June at Headingley
00:35so a real great opportunity for us to inspire everybody across Yorkshire
00:39but ideally lots of young females and lots of adults as well to participate in cricket,
00:45pick up a bat and ball for the first time if they've never tried it
00:47and get inspired by the role models and the world class cricketers
00:51that we're going to have in Yorkshire across the next couple of weeks.
00:54So many activities taking place in the build up to the World Cup,
00:57we're trying to get out and about across all areas of Yorkshire,
01:00obviously it's a massive county and we want to make sure everyone has the opportunity
01:03to feel connected to Leeds and to Headingley.
01:06So lots of things happening out in the communities and then at Headingley for the games
01:10we've got over 3,500 children coming for one fixture during the school day
01:15so teachers have allowed them to come out of their timetabled lessons to watch the game
01:20and to enjoy the atmosphere and hopefully be inspired.
01:23They were then lucky enough to have England v Scotland at Headingley again
01:27so a real big headline game, hopefully big crowds at that one, we're hoping to have pretty full seats,
01:36nice western terrace support in England and Scotland I'm sure
01:40and hopefully some big fours and sixes for the crowd to get behind.
01:44In Yorkshire our women's game grows exponentially each year,
01:48we started with seven clubs running women's cricket five years ago
01:52we're now at over 180 clubs in Yorkshire running women's cricket
01:55and the girls game is taking a similar direction
01:58and we're really hopeful that those clubs now can come to Yorkshire
02:01and see the role models that have helped them growing up
02:04and have helped them inspired in cricket.
02:06Cricket is such a good sport for mental health, for encouraging children and adults to go outside,
02:12it's a sport you can do with families.
02:14I played cricket for the first time at school when I was about eight years old
02:18in the boys team because no other girls wanted to play.
02:20I ended up playing cricket inside a supermarket headquarter in Leeds with Graham Swan at the time
02:27and then I actually dropped away from cricket for a little while
02:30because there wasn't the opportunity for girls to play back when I was little
02:33so I took up various other sports and sort of came back involved with cricket when I was at university
02:39so lived with a couple of cricketers, was around the environment, realised how much of a family sport it was,
02:45how inclusive it was and just picked it back up there and started playing at my local club
02:49and now that I work for the foundation I can put all my experiences of not being involved
02:54and not being included in a sport to now make a positive difference for those girls across Yorkshire
02:58to have that opportunity.
02:59I'm going to.
02:59I'm going to.
03:00I'm going to.
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