Dalzell’s parents were the first people she told about her call-up.<\/p>\n
It is her dad Alan with whom she credits for first sparking her interest in the sport.<\/p>\n
“Dad always has had a passion for cricket.<\/p>\n
“He would have had my brother and I out the back of the house playing as children.<\/p>\n
“I joined Bready Cricket Club when I was 11 and I played some boys cricket and then I started playing men’s cricket when I was around 13.”<\/p>\n
Cricket as a career did not feel like even a possibility for Dalzell but that changed in 2019 when the first-ever part-time contracts for women were awarded by Cricket Ireland.<\/p>\n
Amongst the first recipients was the now Ireland World Cup captain, Gaby Lewis.<\/p>\n
Dalzell said when she was growing up there was a lack of visibility of female role models in cricket.<\/p>\n
“I did just play for enjoyment, and I was very accepted in both the boys and men’s teams in Bready.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t feel any different. But there was also so little coverage of women’s cricket in broadcast media at that time. I do feel that has changed massively now.<\/p>\n
“Growth of girls cricket in the north west for example has been massive and I think the improved coverage of the sport is helping drive the next generation of young female cricketers.<\/p>\n
“If someone younger can see me and know that locally I have come though the pathway – hopefully it helps them know that they can do it too.”<\/p>\n
Dalzell also praised North West Cricket Union Chief Executive Kathryn Rough for her work in developing the sport for women and girls.<\/p>\n
“Kathryn has made massive changes introducing younger girls’ leagues’ which are thriving now and growing every year.<\/p>\n
“You can the difference that it’s made to north west cricket and its coming through the women’s leagues and the clubs are really seeing the benefit.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dalzell’s parents were the first people she told about her call-up. It is her dad Alan with whom…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-694508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}