NJCA girls cricket officer Leya Wilson awarded the Women and Girls Initiative of the Year at the Cricket Australia 2021 Community Awards.

But off the field the Redhead 45-year-old is proving a heavy hitter for the sport.

Wilson was the driving force behind an explosion of numbers in girls cricket in Newcastle last season.

Her efforts earned national recognition last week when on behalf of Charlestown Junior Cricket Club (CJCC) and the Newcastle Junior Cricket Association (NJCA) Wilson was awarded the Women and Girls Initiative of the Year at the Cricket Australia 2021 Community Awards.

It was a humbling moment for someone whose motivation came from watching a female friend of her teenage son choose to join another club so she could play with other girls.

"That was the first thing that alerted me to the fact that there wasn't an easy pathway for the girls," Wilson said. "You'd also go to the club presentation and each year there were less and less girls."

Wilson took on the voluntary roles of being the girls cricket officer for CJCC and NJCA and was the driving force behind the successful introduction of stage one and stage two all-girls competitions in Newcastle last summer.

In 2018, NJCA female junior registrations numbered 148 players and six all-girl teams. In 2019-20, there were 269 players and seven teams. Last summer, a record 333 players were registered and there were 15 all-girls' teams. That included girls from the Junior and Master Blaster programs, for kids aged five to 10 and aimed to provide basic skill development, through to girls in NJCA competition.

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Wilson's 15-year-old daughter Mae was one of the new players to take up a sport which younger brother Kel, 14, had already played for a number of years.

"She'd never been interested," Wilson said. "I got involved in girls cricket without her playing but she did end up playing this year because one of her friends wanted to play.

"In our [stage two] Charlestown team, a couple had done social sixers, one had played in Sydney with junior boys and the others were new. They aged from about 12 to 16 and they had a great time. The friendships and connections they made were remarkable for a group of girls who didn't know each other at the start.

"Having kids, you just know how important sport is for them, particularly as the girls get older. How important that team sport is and what it does for self-confidence and self-esteem."

Wilson said the next step was documenting a clear pathway for girls in Newcastle from the Junior Blasters program through to senior women's competition.

A focus for next summer will also be on encouraging more clubs to field all-girls teams in the stage one and two competitions as well as increasing opportunities for female umpires and coaches.

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