The Canadian Women’s side face another tough test on Thursday (July 25) in Dublin against Ireland in the Women’s T20 World Cup qualifier. Canada lost heavily to to the group’s top seeded Sri Lanka in the opening game on Tuesday, a result some might think has parallels to the men’s loss to Sri Lanka in the 2003 ICC World Cup in South Africa.
There is a significant gap between the preparations of the Sri Lankan women and those of Canada for this qualifier, potentially greater than the gap in the men’s setup in 2003, but similar in nature. A gap that needs to be addressed in the future, particularly by Cricket Canada and the leading Canadian provincial governing bodies. It is possibly a bigger gap than for existed for the men in 2003, given the somewhat limited numbers of active female cricketers in Canada. It also begs the questions: what do the leading provincial governing bodies of cricket actually do?
The websites for the provincial bodies in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario are rather quiet about provincial level cricketing activities. Quebec has provided men’s international players in the past, but the website, like Alberta’s, is out of date by two to four years. Hardly the stuff of promoting and developing cricket in Canada. The Quebec Cricket Federation hosted the 2013 Atlantic T20 Championship, but who would know that, based on the lack of information to promote the tournament or push out news of the outcome by the host province?
In the short-term, which is today’s global and microcosmic level of reality, Canadian captain Mikaela Turik is looking to the team for improvement against Ireland. Following the loss to Sri Lanka Turik said, ‘There’s a lot to learn from this game, we can face this bowling, we did not show our best, we know we can improve a lot on this performance against Ireland.’
Sri Lanka had placed fifth in 2013 50-over World Cup
Sri Lanka’s women performed well to place fifth place in the 50-over version of the ICC Women’s World Cup in February 2013.
The one women’s division in the Toronto and District Cricket Association, Canada’s largest league, only has four teams. On Canada Day (July 1, 2013) two Toronto-based teams took part in a T20 exhibition game on the closing day of the CIBC NCL T20 Championship. The game was mentioned as part of a re-arranged CIBC National Cricket League schedule on the Cricket Canada website. The result of the women’s game did not seem to warrant a mention.
Canada Day 2013, meanwhile, saw the Wicket Maidens (Victoria, British Columbia) win the Western Canada Women’s championship against teams from Calgary (Alberta) Chilliwack (British Columbia, Edmonton (Alberta) and Vancouver (British Columbia). The outcome gained a mention on the Victoria and District Cricket Association website and in a Chilliwack newspaper.
There is some hope of future expansion for Canadian women’s cricket as six girls teams took part in the Greater Toronto Area CIBC CIMA Mayor’s High School Cricket Championship. Six teams in a difficult year where an industrial dispute between some teachers’ unions and the Ontario Provincial Government might have resulted in no CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) school cricket events taking place.
A partnership formed between the City of Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation and CIMA created the 2005 Toronto Mayor’s Trophy one-day cricket festival, which continues on an annual basis. A schools cricket tournament, originally for Toronto Schools, emerged in 2011. It expanded in 2013 to include school teams from the cities of Brampton (Peel Region), Mississauga (Peel Region) and Markham (York Region) in High Schools cricket action.
In the swings and roundabouts of limited overs cricket, Sri Lanka’s women captured fifth place in the 2013 Women’s World Cup thanks to an 88-run win against South Africa in a playoff game in February. South Africa had previously beaten Sri Lanka by 110 runs in the Super Six phase. Sri Lanka had won against India (by 138 runs) and England (by one wicket) in Group matches, but were beaten heavily by the West Indies.
Since mid-February, Sri Lanka has played the West Indies in ODI and T50 games, held a domestic regional women’s tournament and played warm-up games against an England Development and England Academy teams before this Women’s T20 qualifier.
Ireland’s preparations for the T20 qualifier included 50-over and T20 games against Pakistan Women, the number one seed in the qualifier.
Canada took part in two days of games against Scotland and Thailand, losing all twice to each opponent. There was no regional women’s tournament in Canada, unlike in Sri Lanka. Scoring at five or six an over to achieve a total of 100 or more might be a reasonable target for Thursday. A win might do wonders for the Canadian squad.

Eddie Norfolk