The island’s youngest girls cricket team is seeking more players as they continue to take on the boys every week.

The Warwick Cricket Academy under-9 girls team are the only all-female team on the island and play mostly against under-7 boys as they are allowed to play two age groups down.

But as their skills and technique grows under the watchful eyes of parent-coaches Nelson Lee and Stafford Lowe, the decision to start the programme now looks justified, with the girls able to beat their opponents at under-7 level.

“Even though we’re playing against under-7 boys at this stage I don’t see a vast amount of difference in ability,” Lowe said.

“There is no case to be made that the girls aren’t as good as boys and we are actually close to the standard of playing against under-9 boys with a bit more coaching and cohesion.”

Even though the side has an affiliation with Warwick Academy, the team is open to girls from all schools and there are students at Mount Saint Agnes Academy and Somersfield Academy among the players on the team.

Lee is keen to build the programme and is hoping that there may be enough interest to set up a second all-girls team with a number playing in boys teams around the island.

“The Warwick Cricket Academy is not just for girls from the school,” Lee said

“If any girl from anywhere on the island is interested and wants to play cricket we’ll happily welcome them and that’s the beauty of it.

“This season we have ten girls and ideally, we’d like to see a girls only league develop but we’re just at the start now.

“We’ve seen that happen with girls football and Kappa Classic is now open to girls at all age groups and we’re hoping the same will happen with in cricket. We’re at the start of trying to open it up and as we get more exposure we can drive change and hopefully get more participation across all groups.”

Lee and Lowe both have two daughters and have noticed a difference in the way girls respond to coaching methods.

“Girls listen better than boys,” Lee said. “We find that if girls are interested, they are begging for information. They will take it in, process it and try to execute. Boys may or may not concentrate and it takes more time.

“This is our third season and our girls can bowl properly and bat properly. When other girls see that it can be contagious.”

Lowe has seen huge progression in standards since taking charge of the team three years ago.

“You start when they are very young and it can be hard to play cricket at a very young age as until you can catch a ball, you can’t really play cricket,” Lowe said.

“But when you can do that, the game opens up. Fielding becomes fun and everything becomes more coherent and it’s nice to catch the interest early, incubate it and grow it.”

The team trains once a week on Mondays with their matches taking place on Friday and while at that young age scores are not required to be kept, coaches at that level often keep records with the children keen to know how well they are done.

“Although you are not required to keep a score at that age, what is quite nice is that coaches from other teams also want to keep the score,” Lee said.

“The girls are certainly competitive and my daughters have a brother so they are used to it being on and they don’t back down.”

The team are hoping to attract a corporate sponsor to help with equipment with interested parties invited to contact Richard Todd, the Warwick Cricket Acaemy technical director, or David Horan, principal of Warwick Academy.

“We just want to see how far we can take this,” Lee said. “The girls love playing and we are there to encourage them and support them on the journey.”