Cricket Australia has announced its contracted women’s players for 2023/24, with four new additions to the 17-person list.
Kim Garth, Heather Graham and Phoebe Litchfield have all been offered contracts for the first time, while Grace Harris joins the list after earning an upgrade last season.
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Rachael Haynes, who retired from professional cricket last year, drops out along with Tasmanian all-rounder Nicola Carey, who declined a contract offer.
“We’ve had a core group of players performing well over the last 12 months which means some talented players have missed out, it’s certainly made selection tough but we’re in a fortunate position to have such depth across Australian Cricket,” national selector Shawn Flegler said in a statement.
“Importantly, there is still the opportunity for players not offered contracts to earn upgrades through consistent performances, as we saw with Grace last year.”
The number of women’s CA contracts has increased from 15 to 18 this season courtesy of the new MOU agreement, details of which were announced on Monday — players holding contracts will now be recognised as full-time athletes.
Garth and Graham were members of Australia’s triumphant T20 World Cup squad for this year’s tournament in South Africa, while teenager Litchfield earned a maiden Ashes call-up last week after a breakout summer with the bat.
“Litchfield is a young talent who we believe has a big future,” Flegler said.
“She’s built her game upon a very sound technique and we’re confident she can transfer those skills into international cricket.”
Since her long-awaited return to international cricket last year, Harris has become a crucial member of the national T20 side. Since the start of 2022, the Queenslander has plundered 214 T20I runs with a mind-boggling strike rate of 184.48.
“Harris earned an upgrade last season and subsequently played every match throughout the T20 World Cup,” Flegler said.
“She is a multi-skilled cricketer who can influence matches with both bat and ball.”
Injury-riddled Tayla Vlaeminck has earned a contract despite nursing a foot complaint for most of the 2022/23 summer — the talented quick was recently named in the Australia A squad for this winter’s tour of England.
Last week, it was revealed that Carey made herself unavailable for the Australia A tour to focus on her pre-season commitments.
“Carey expressed a desire to spend the winter in Tasmania to allow her to utilise a full pre-season at home, focusing on using that time to develop skills in her game to push for international selection in the future,” Flegler said.
“We offered Nic a contract because we believe she is a player of international quality, but we respect her decision to focus on a pre-season program with Tasmania and will continue to support her moving forward.
Flegler continued: “She’s been around the squad for a while, but hasn’t played lots of games, and so she was just wanting to focus on having a really good pre-season with Tasmania. She felt like that would be the best avenue for her.
“She certainly hasn’t ruled out playing for Australia again, she made that very clear … but at this point in time in her career, she feels like staying in Tassie and working with that squad will give her that best opportunity.
“Not something everyone would do, but totally respect that decision.”
As part of the new MOU, Australia’s top contracted women’s cricketers can now earn more than $800,000 annually, including their WBBL contract, match fees and marketing payments.
Australia’s next challenge is the Women’s Ashes series in England, which gets underway on June 22.
Cricket Australia 2023/24 contracted women’s players
Darcie Brown, Ashleigh Gardner, Kim Garth, Heather Graham, Grace Harris, Alyssa Healy, Jess Jonassen, Alana King, Meg Lanning, Phoebe Litchfield, Tahlia McGrath, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Tayla Vlaeminck, Georgia Wareham
