ST Georges Basin’s Joanne Kelly has just returned from helping her NSW open women’s side reach the semi-finals at the Australian Indoor Cricket Championships at Toowoomba.
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Making the achievement of Kelly, 42, and her team even more incredible was there interrupted preparation.
”We had trials a few months ago, but unfortunately we did not have a great deal of players nominate,” Kelly said.
“We had no coach and no manager, so I took on the coaching role and we managed to get three training sessions and three games before we went away.
“Compare that to Queensland, who trained together for six months, I think we did very well under the circumstances.”
The 2018 tournament was Kelly’s third in the open tournament – two as captain and one as coach – after playing in another seven masters competitions.
“We were absolutely smashed by Queensland in the first game 136-13,” she said.
“My partner and I came off with 21 runs scored – I also picked up two of the three wickets in their innings.
“They are very clinical in everything they do and went through the tournament undefeated to beat South Australia in the grand final.”
Following their opening loss, NSW lost to Western Australia (108-104), Victoria (106-79), South Australia (138-54) and Queensland (95-9) before recording their first win against Western Australia (96-88).
Unfortunately, they lost their final two pool games to Victoria (133-41) and South Australia (106-28) – setting up a semi-final showdown with Victoria.
“Going into the semis, we knew we had not performed up to our potential all week,” Kelly said.
“Our bowling and fielding were improving but our batting was yet to click.
“We batted first and managed to post 97, our highest score for the week – we were stoked to have those runs on the board as it meant we could be competitive.
“Unfortunately, we just didn’t get our bowling right – only managing three wickets in the game and Victoria cruised to 145.
“We just didn’t bowl in the right areas to bring our fielders into the game.”
During the tournament, Kelly finished with 80 runs, seven wickets and a number of catches.
“Considering our lack of preparation, we performed extremely well against opposition that had trained for months beforehand,” she said.
“Unfortunately for us the expense keeps a lot of players away – we have players travelling up to 13 hours for a training session.
“Getting a coach on board early would also be very helpful.”
Kelly will now complete her NICL season next month, before again playing outdoor with St George-Sutherland in the summer.
She is also hoping to make the Australian team for the Masters World Cup in South Africa next year.