- Beth Mooney
YORKSHIRE CRICKET is delighted to announce the signing of Australian Women’s International player Beth Mooney. The 21-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman will play for the Yorkshire Women’s Team in their Division One campaign this summer.
Mooney, who plays her domestic cricket for Queensland Fire in Cricket Australia’s Women's National Cricket League and helping them to a runners-up spot during the 2014-15 campaign, will arrive at Headingley in April and is expected to play most of the season for the White Rose county.
As part of her cricket development, Beth will be attached to Wakefield club Wrenthorpe where she will play in the competitive Yorkshire Women’s League. As part of her development, she will assist the coaching staff with the county age group teams and work with the The Yorkshire Cricket Foundation during the week specifically promoting women’s cricket across the region.
The talented left-hander, who was part of Australia’s successful T20 World Cup squad that won the tournament in 2014, will bat in the top-order and take up the wicketkeeping duties from Lauren Winfield, so that the England international can concentrate on her batting and captaining the side.
Commenting on the capture of Mooney, Jane Hildreth, Director lead on Women & Girls Crikcet at the Yorkshire Cricket Board, said:
“It is a major coup to sign Beth (Mooney) and shows our intent to the rest of the women’s game in England that we mean business this season. Yorkshire Women share the same desire as the men’s team and that is to win the County Championship in 2015.
“As a County, we were looking to strengthen our squad for 2015 and are aware how valuable overseas players are. They bring experience and a desire to contribute to a team. We were fortunate that Beth approached us just at the time we were planning and she has exactly the qualities we are looking for.
“We hope to offer Beth a fully immersive experience of how Yorkshire Cricket is developing at grassroots level and I’m sure she’ll engage herself in all activities and return to Australia a more rounded individual.”
Earlier this month, Mooney showed her class with some eye-catching performances for the Australian Shooting Stars – the second string side behind the Australia Southern Stars squad – on their tour of Sri Lanka. She smashed 144 not out off 142 balls as the young Australians chased down Sri Lanka’s total of 231 for the loss of six wickets, reaching the target in the 49th over.
She was just as impressive in the second game, finishing 128 not out from 124 balls as Australia won that game as well.
“It is a great honour to be joining Yorkshire,” added Mooney. “I've only ever heard good things about the set up at Headingley and the people involved with the organisation. I also have a couple of mates in Australia that know a couple of players for Yorkshire and they said they're really good people.
“The women's programme in England has been developing over past couple of years and so have the players, so I'm keen to be involved and help out in hopefully some more success that comes Yorkshire's way.
“It's an exciting period for women's cricket around the world and I'm just really keen to see the way the English set up works, hopefully help a few girls out in the development of their game and learn a few things myself along the way.
“Playing with another group of girls is something really exciting and refreshing for me coming off a long season over here in Australia.”
Player Factfile
Full name: Bethany Louise Mooney
Born: January 14, 1994 (21-years-old)
Major teams: Australia Women, Queensland Under-15s Women, Queensland Women
Batting style: Left-hand bat
Fielding position: Wicketkeeper
Career Highlights:
• 2012 captained the Australian Shooting Stars at age 18 in a tour in New Zealand against New Zealand A
• 2012 scored two centuries for Australia A in the two series against New Zealand A
• 2014 captained Queensland Fire to their Maiden T20 win in Perth, aged 20
• 2014 Member of the Australian Squad that won the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh
• 2015 scored two centuries for Australian Shooting Stars on their tour of Sri Lanka
• Been a consistent performer for the Queensland Fire over five seasons, having debuted aged 16